


Swimsuits, Pushups, Chapstick

by Ellerigby13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Darcy Lewis, Darcy slowly collects BFFs, Multi, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, country club au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:12:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Darcy Lewis is used to people looking at her.  This summer, it’s for a reason she’s not particularly proud of.  The thing is, she’s tired of worrying about what everyone thinks, has her soon-to-be-doctor best friend who has her back, and is absolutely not interested in a relationship.The other thing is, Odin’s hired some incredibly good-looking help at the club this year, and one Steve the Lifeguard seems keen on testing Darcy’s self control.It’s going to be a long, hot, celibate summer.  (Spoiler: only two of those adjectives will apply.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To the End of the World and Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14522337) by [Ellerigby13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13). 



> Thanks for having a look, everyone! I'm sort of jumping into this fic based on a couple of drabbles I've written for Tumblr, so please let me know what you think. I hope you like it :)  
> [Inspiration for the title comes from Jersey Shore]

Darcy wasn’t stupid.  Occasionally a crappy judge of character, sometimes terrible at making serious life choices.  Not stupid.

Therefore, she didn’t miss all the glances, all the whispering and giggling that followed her as she walked through the country club the first time this year.  She didn’t miss Emily Dwyer pointing her out and raising her eyebrows at Shelley McElroy, or Shelley’s jaw dropping, or Emily’s smug little hot pink smirk that followed.  And for some reason, Darcy was sure that the whole glancing-whispering-giggling-pointing-jaw-dropping-smirking thing didn’t have anything to do with her new sexy red wrap, the exercise routine that had helped her fit  _ into _ the sexy red wrap, or the master’s degree that she’d just finished up.

Nope.  Pretty sure it had something to do with the series of thoroughly unfortunate events that she and Jane had dubbed The Ian Fiasco.

“Do we acknowledge the staring, or do we keep walking?” Jane mumbled, presumably trying to be discreet.  Jane had a hard time hiding her antsiness - she tended to wring her hands, pull on her hair, get all shifty-eyed.  At the moment, it was the latter that would have given her away, if she hadn’t had the foresight to wear the reflective sunglasses.

“Keep walking. We acknowledge when the staring is...well, when it’s their hang-up, not mine.”

She’d been stared at before at the club.  The summer between junior and senior year of high school, when she developed boobs ( _ Dad had almost knocked out Franklin Walker, who was ninety and whose dentures had fallen out when she jumped into the pool _ ).  The summer between junior and senior year of college, when she’d been casually banging Franklin Walker’s youngest son ( _ Tristan Walker was thirty-eight, and Dad had also almost knocked him out when he found out _ ).

She’d been stared at the summer after her dad died, and when she’d renewed his membership with part of her grad school tuition money.  Then she’d been stared at when Odin pulled her aside and promised to take care of the membership, and make up for the student loans she’d accrued.  They stared at her then because they all knew, and in spite of what they might have said about all the sympathy they felt for her, or how  _ terrible _ it was to hear about Samuel Lewis, Darcy Lewis knew they were staring because her eyeliner had run all down her cheeks.

The first two times she remembered being stared at, she sashayed a little extra hard.  The last two, and now this time, she walked a little faster. This was the only time she was almost embarrassed.

She was not proud of The Ian Fiasco.  Done was done, though, and, had she not majored in poli sci, Darcy would certainly have excelled in the often forgotten art of picking up the pieces.

“Darling,” came a soft but sweet voice from behind them, under one of the large cabanas by the pool.  And like that, Jane was in the arms of her long, lean boyfriend, engaging in a display of public affection so goddamn chaste and adorable that Darcy would have vomited if it weren’t so damn cute.  Loki loosed his hold on his girlfriend after a short moment, grinning down at Darcy. “And Miss Lewis. Always a pleasure. And congratulations with your degree.”

“Thanks, Loki.  How’s everything been?”

“Good,” he said mildly, raising his eyebrows.  Jane turned so she could face her best friend, and Loki slung an arm around her waist, keeping her flush to his chest.  “We’re opening an alehouse downtown, as Father puts it, to ‘attract a more diverse demographic.’” He rolled his eyes. “Wants me to manage it.”

“ _ Lo _ ki!” Jane exclaimed.  She put her hands on her hips, and for a brief moment Darcy was reminded of Frigga Bergstrom, the strong posture and the concerned lines in her forehead.  “You didn’t tell me that. When are you starting? When does it open?”

“Slow down, dearest.”  He chuckled, a soft sparkle in his eyes as he looked bashfully down at his shoes.  “Plans are still being drawn up, Father’s still in the process of getting the funds in order.”  After a moment he shrugged, and it warmed Darcy’s heart to see how happy this was making him. Loki Bergstrom,  _ bashful _ .  “But I...I truly am excited.  I’ll be involved in the design process and...well, I suppose I’ll have to leave my illustrious bartending career behind me in favor of management.”

“That’s awesome.  Congratulations, man, you’re doing adulty shit.”  Darcy adjusted the straps of her swimsuit, unable to keep herself from grinning.  “One of these days you’re gonna start bringin’ up mortgages and investments and - and down payments and shit.”

“That  _ will _ be the day.”  Loki was chuckling again, shaking his head again.  “I know you’ve just gotten here, but can I get you ladies anything to drink?  While I’ve still got my behind-the-bar privileges?”

“Sweetie, I doubt they’ll ever take those away from you.”  The only person with an eye-roll that could rival Darcy’s was perhaps soon-to-be Doctor Jane Foster, and with the combined head-shake that tossed her long, flowing hair near effortlessly from side to side - well, if they hadn’t been Best Friends™ Darcy  _ may _ have fallen in love with her a little (who was she kidding, she was already a little in love with Jane).

“But a couple of Mai Tais would  _ definitely _ enhance our day.”  Darcy winked, inviting herself into one of the lounge chairs that occupied Loki’s cabana.  Ever the gentleman, he marched off dutifully, allowing a lovesick Jane to plop into the chair beside her.  “Dude. You guys are disgusting.”

“Sorry,” Jane sighed, then dropped her tote into the space between them, kicking her legs out onto the chair.

“No, no, in a good way.  It’s - you guys are cute.  You’re cool.” She was starting to stumble over her words, and for God’s sake, without drinking a drop.  She’d forgotten what it was like to be single, to not have someone attached to her side like Jane would this summer.  “You guys made me feel normal, actually. Took my mind off...everything. Everybody looking at me and thinking what they’re all thinking.”

Jane hesitated before reaching into her tote to pull out one of her thick textbooks.  A stiffness had fallen in the air between them, one that Darcy had tried to crack but now had somehow cemented.   _ Fuck me… _

“Yeah,” Jane said flatly, thumbing through the pages of  _ Astrophysics for Physicists  _ with her trusty orange highlighter.  Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was the compulsion to science?  Had Darcy really grown so dull that Jane had to tune her out with a textbook?  Or had she said something wrong, as per usual?

She leaned back into her chair and tried to dismiss the sick feeling in her stomach.  Tried to focus on the gentle glittering waves of the pool, except that the pool was teeming with tiny humans who peed and farted and boogered into it, and that sick feeling only intensified.

And then she noticed the lifeguards standing at the opposite end of the pool.

They stood there all in a row, looking too damn perfect to be human, and now Darcy was elbowing Jane very unsubtly, nearly certain that her mouth had fallen open very, very unattractively.  With the other hand, she plucked her sunglasses off her face and folded them into the front of her wrap.

“Dude.  Dude. I  _ think _ my ovaries have just exploded.”

They were all new, that was for sure.  Because Darcy  _ knew _ she would’ve remembered the incredibly curvaceous, athletic-looking redhead with her arms crossed over her chest, looking like she could kill Darcy with a snap of her hips.  She absolutely would have remembered the tall, dark, and handsome brunette with the ponytail, the chiseled legs, and a prosthetic arm that looked like it was made by the late Steve Jobs himself.

And for God’s sake, she would have remembered  _ him _ .

Standing at a delectable six-foot-three-ish in a swimsuit she would have to personally thank Speedo for was a fine blond fellow with a good boy haircut, Jesus’s abs, and the face of an angel.  A shiny silver whistle dangling from his neck bounced delightfully against his chest and  _ never _ had Darcy wanted to switch places with an inanimate object the way that she wanted to now.

“Ah.  Him,” Jane said mischievously, her grin twisting into a smirk akin to her boyfriend’s usual expression.  “Yeah, Loki said Odin was hiring some new lifeguards this summer. I think  _ his _ name is Steve.”  She paused. And Darcy continued to ogle, her ultra-obvious gaze protected only by the shade of the cabana.  “You should go talk to him.”

“Me?  Talk? To  _ him _ ?  Mere mortals like myself are less than unworthy of that perfection.”

This earned her a playful and extremely painful swat with the  _ Astrophysics for Physicists _ .  Jane frowned, incredulity and something like irritation painting her usually gentle features.

“If you don’t talk to him, I will push you into that cesspool of spoiled children and women who regret half their lives so he can give you the germiest resuscitation Odin & Sons has ever seen.”  Shit. When Jane took the Dull Tone, she meant fucking business.

Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose.  Shit, shit, shit.

“Okay.  Okay, Janie.  I’m gonna do ya one better.  I’m gonna make him come over here.”

She thrust a hand into Jane’s tote and stood up, turning away from the pool.  With her free hand, she unwound the tie on the waist of her wrap and let the thin cloth fall to her feet.

“Is he looking?  I’m not gonna make an idiot of myself like this if he isn’t looking.”  Jane leaned slightly to her left to peer across the pool.

“Oh, he’s looking.  Do you need me to look preoccupied with my book so I won’t come off like a complete asshole for not offering to help you with the sunscreen?”

“Please.”  As Darcy squirted the stuff into her palm and began to rub it up her arms, Jane buried her nose in her textbook, still excitedly eyeing Steve the Lifeguard over the science.  “So. A management gig for your boy. That’s pretty sick.”

“I had no idea, I can’t believe he’s just telling me  _ now _ .”  She moved on to her chest, spreading the cream over her collarbone and boobs and all up her shoulders.

“C’mon, Janie, he wouldn’t be Loki if he didn’t screw with you just a little bit.”  Down to her stomach, carefully tracing the curve of her waist. Her eyes wandered to the book in Jane’s hands.  “Damn, dude, you’re almost done with school. How many semesters left now?”

“Three.”  Jane was trying to sound casual, but the way her smile prickled up told otherwise.  “I’ll be expecting all your mom’s Hanukkah cards to be addressed to Dr. Foster from now on.”

“You know, the way we are these days I  _ almost _ forget sometimes that you were technically my boss for a year.”  The days of the internship in New Mexico had long passed, but Darcy liked remembering their little RV, the shoddy little tent they used to pitch under the stars to study the rotation of the planet and the way that atmospheric triggers could change the way that people were able to understand the universe.  She especially liked remembering how, when Loki’s older brother Thor had come to visit them, he’d scared the living shit out of her outside the RV one night and she may have accidentally tazed him.

That would’ve been something to be embarrassed about, if he hadn’t laughed it off with that extra jovial laugh of his and patted her on the back like he was her brother.

In some ways, he was.  Odin had always treated her kindly, especially after her dad passed.  And the fact that he even came out to  _ visit _ that summer - well, granted, he’d had a thing for Jane before realizing that she fit Loki like a glove - he sure showed that he loved her like a brother would.

Darcy smiled, her hands absently motioning across the same spot on her belly over and over.  Ian Fiasco or no Ian Fiasco, she was absolutely still looking forward to this summer.

“Mayday,” hissed Jane, suddenly angling her textbook higher to cover her face.  “Steve the Lifeguard, on your eleven - shit, wait, is it your eleven or your one o’clock?”

“You’re about to be a doctor and you don't know how the clock alert works?”

“Excuse me, miss?”

Darcy turned around, letting her hair flip impressively over her shoulder as she surveyed Steve the Lifeguard, who was gazing into her eyes with a polite kindness that sparked an unbearable heat somewhere south of her navel.  And then he was bending down, most likely gracing the opposite end of the pool with what was likely the most glorious view of the most glorious ass this side of the Mississippi and -

And picked up her sunglasses, which must have tumbled off the cleavage of her wrap when she took it off in that ridiculous attempt at seduction.  When he stood again, he extended them to her, but she was only slightly occupied with the flexing of his quads and then his biceps.

“You, uh, I think you dropped these.”

“Uh...thanks.”  She took them back, and embarrassment was now imminent, as she could feel her face glow the same color as her swimsuit.

Jesus H. Christ, if she was lucky, her sunglasses wouldn’t be the only thing she was dropping this summer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jane gets sassy, Darcy gets information, and Thor gets home.

“Summer’s barely gotten started.  How did you break her already?”

Maria Hill, resident events coordinator and knower of all gossip that touched the lips of the Odin & Sons rumor mill, was referring to the open-mouthed gape which had occupied Darcy’s jaws since her encounter with Steve the Lifeguard.  Jane rolled her eyes, settling Darcy into the office chair opposite Maria’s large important desk, and then plopped into the chair beside it.

“Word around town is Odin’s hired some new help.  And not only do they  _ not _ look like the usual stringy, underpaid teenagers he typically gets, but they’re all, like...supermodels.  Super buff supermodels.” Future Dr. Foster folded her arms over her chest, trying (and actually, not doing terribly) to look stern.  “You’re our woman on the inside here. So, who’re the lifeguards and why are they all so…”

“Hot?” Maria filled in, raising her eyebrows.  A playful smirk danced across her lips, and she leaned forward on her desk, propping herself up on her elbows.

“‘Like he’s been carved from the marble of gods’ hot.”  Darcy had finally spoken, but still stared hopelessly into the blank space above Maria’s head.

“She  _ is _ working!  I was worried there for a minute, Lewis, thought you’d up and quit on me.”  Maria leaned back in her chair, tucking her long dark hair into a bun at the base of her neck.  “So. As you know, in terms of actual infor _ mation _ I’m only allowed to tell you what I know from the higher ups, which isn’t much.”  The hair tie snapped satisfyingly, and she leaned forward again, supporting her chin on one hand.  “So, actual information: they’re part-timing as lifeguards, part-timing as part of Fury’s security detail.”

Darcy cocked an eyebrow.  Security detail? Had Odin & Sons somehow, since they’d started God knows how long ago, become unsafe?

“Loki hasn’t told me anything about a security detail,” said Jane skeptically, and her folded arms only tightened over her chest.  “Why does the club suddenly need a bigger security team?”

Maria shook her head, the smirk on her face turning mischievous, and she reminded Darcy eerily of the younger Bergstrom brother for a moment.  “Oh, it’s not that he needs a  _ bigger  _ security team.  It’s that the security team from last year was...well, to make it sound fancy, it was compromised.”

“It’s a country club,” Jane interjected, “not the FBI.”

“Well…” and Maria paused, dramatically looking around before she continued, which earned her yet another eye roll from Jane.  “...and this is where the ‘strictly information’ part ends, and trust me, staff’s speculating as much as you are here...but Odin caught wind that last year’s security team was embezzling money from the club.  Rumor has it, he asked Fury to step up the screening process and Fury recruited some of his Green Berets.”

Holy shit.  Darcy vaguely remembered some of the old security team, especially that rugged muscular one with the weird insignia tattooed on his wrist...but embezzlement.  Jesus. And Army recruits? No wonder Steve the Lifeguard had given her the sunglasses all sweet and called her Miss instead of staring at her tits the whole time.

“But that’s only one of many rumors, isn’t it?” Jane prodded, still not quite as invested as Darcy in the whole Mystery of the Badass Lifeguards just yet.  “There’s got to be more. What else have you heard?”

“Green Berets is my most  _ reliable _ piece of information so far,” Maria clarified, fiddling with the perpetual motion pendulum on her desk.  She pulled the end ball up and let it loose. “I’ve also heard that they’re CIA, Russian mercenaries, and circus performers.  The list goes on.” She leaned her head back, cracked her neck, and looked at her quasi-clients, as if remembering that she wasn’t getting paid to share all this with them.  “There  _ are _ a few new juicy events happening this year, though, that might also explain the added security.”

“I like events.”  Darcy twirled a strand of her hair around her finger, and both Jane and Maria whipped around to look at her.  This was only the second time she’d spoken in this impromptu meeting, which was rather out of character. “What are they doing for Memorial Day this year?”  Maria smirked again.

“Memorial Day  _ weekend _ .”  But just as Darcy felt herself perking up again, Hill shook her head, that seductive, torturous smile still gracing her lips.  “But again, as a  _ highly _ -esteemed employee of the club, there’s only so much I can say.  Sorry.”

Taking the hint, Darcy stood, pulling Jane up with her.  The ticking of the perpetual motion pendulum clicked over their goodbyes all the way out of the office.

“You know, we really didn’t get anything interesting out of her.”

Darcy scoffed, eyebrows lifting in disbelief.  “They could be Green Berets, CIA, and/or circus performers.  That’s pretty damn interesting in my book.” She dug into her purse, fished around for a Chapstick, and dabbed anxiously at her lips, suddenly aware of how dry they’d become in the heat.  Or...maybe remembering how long it had been since she’d used them for something other than talking shit with Jane or her professors. Jane scoffed back, shifting her tote from one arm to the other.

“Misdirection.  She told us about their  _ jobs _ .  Why they’re in town.  Nothing about what they’re like or if they’re dating anybody yet.”  For what felt like the thousandth time that day, Darcy’s jaw dropped.  

“Jane Foster, are you being shallow right now?”  The taller woman chewed on her lip in a manner that could only be called nefarious, before shrugging her shoulders and giving her companion a gentle nudge.

“I’m in a committed, long-term relationship and have been studying doctorate bullshit so hard I can see the constellations every time I close my eyes.”  With the hand that wasn’t now resting on Darcy’s shoulder Jane was rubbing her temples. “I need the drama. A girl can only read Stephen Hawking for so long until she needs a little Tila Tequila in her life.”

Darcy couldn’t hold back the giggle that tickled the back of her throat.

“Tila Tequila?  Have I died and gone to 2008?”

“Shut up.”  Jane laughed and gave Darcy a half a shove.  “You know what I mean. Speaking of tequila and my long-term relationship, I think I need to buy my guy a drink.”  Then came that weird silence - that moment of ‘do I invite her because I’m currently her only friend even though I  _ want _ to be alone with my boyfriend?’ wherein Jane started with some of her tells: the hand-wringing, then the hair-picking, and finally the shifty eyes.  Darcy let it sit for a moment, wondering why she wasn’t jumping in yet.

“You should.”  She bobbed her head uncomfortably, and let herself get shifty-eyed too.  “Maybe, uh...we can hit the bar tomorrow or something. I’ll probably...um…”

“You know, that hurricane relief group Thor was working with shipped back in recently, and, uh, I think he’s coming in soon.  We can check with Odin, see what time he gets in.”

“I’ll go see Odin.  You go hang out with Tall, Dark, and Handsome.  Make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble.”  She rubbed Jane’s arm, thrust her fists into her pockets, and cocked her head to the side in what she envisioned as a devil-may-care position.  “I can’t guarantee the same for me, so…”

*****

“Holy shit.  Look at you, all scrubbed up.”  Darcy loved Thor. She so did. But  _ God _ , she was thankful he’d finally chopped the shaggy surfer cut, and the little lightning bolts he’d gotten buzzed into his fade - he cleaned up nice.  Pair that with the puppy dog grin he wore so often, and she was seein’ pussy aplenty in his future this summer.

“You’re as beautiful as always, Darcy Lewis,” he exclaimed, lifting her off the ground and prompting the tiny squeal that escaped her mouth.  “I’m pleased to be home. More than pleased, really. It’s shaping to be a wonderful summer, with everyone back together and hopefully a few new additions to the bunch.”

Oh, God, there they were.  Were they always lined up like that?  Like a runway show? Except now there was a _ nother _ one, and he was just as fit and fine as the others, but he was leaner where Steve the Lifeguard was buff, Bucky with the Bionic Arm was stocky, and Redhead Natasha was curvy, and his skin was a rich, deep brown.

Instead of Speedos by the pool, though, the four of them were in their security getup, and Darcy couldn’t decide whether she liked the ‘tight bathing suits, sunglasses, and beads of either perspiration or pool water’ look or the ‘tight Kevlar and leather that defined every single thigh muscle there was to see’ look better.  Darcy caught Steve the Lifeguard whisper something to Bucky with the Bionic Arm, and when the latter laughed, she elbowed Thor gently in the side.

“Who are they?  We talked to Maria earlier, but all we got was...vague Green Beret goop.”

“Ah, yes,” Thor declared proudly, taking their drinks from the bar and handing Darcy her whiskey Coke.  “Nicholas fought a many great battles with Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Sam. Of anyone, I’d suppose he trusts them most.”

“So that’s true, then?  About them being in the military together?”

“Absolutely.”  Thor grinned, though Darcy was unsure whether he should have answered her question - that was the difference between him and Maria.  Hill got the digs on everyone because she was good at keeping mum, and only let information go when it was harmless...or amusing to her.  Thor was...not good at keeping secrets, and he didn’t have any himself, but he was kindhearted and tended to give things away at just the right time.  “Very talented soldiers, all of them.”

“You, uh, know them?”  Darcy sipped casually at her whiskey and Coke, then watched with weak regret as a ring of Chapstick clung to the rim.

“Not well, but yes.”  He considered his Long Island, turning it round to watch the dark at the top dissolve into the yellow.  As the colors mixed, a grin touched the corners of his mouth, not unlike his little brother’s. “Why do you ask?”

“Hey, Jane was asking.  She gets no part of the single social scene anymore, so I’ve gotta be her guy on the inside.”  She shrugged and sipped again, doing her best to look innocent and uninvolved. When Thor continued to look unmoved, she added, “I’m not rushing into anything, dude.  For the time being, drank and partying are my S.O. And finding a job.”

“Well, you’ve just completed another degree.  A sophisticated young master such as yourself?  Employers should be falling at your feet at this point.  What is it you want to do?” Damn him for being so nice, for asking all the questions nobody else was interested in right now.  Darcy grimaced into her drink.

“Yeah...see...I don’t exactly  _ know _ what I want to do…”

Thor paused, and it was as though Darcy could see the gears turning in his head, weighing what she’d just said.  Weighing the fact that she’d spent tens of thousands of dollars on a degree that she had no idea what to do with.  Tens of thousands of dollars that  _ his father _ had spent to forgive the debt from the last degree that she’d had no idea what to do with.

“Well...are you working this summer?”

“Nannying the Stark twins. Tony pays me too damn much, I’d do it forever if I wanted to be a nanny for that long.”

“You could work here.”  He was sipping on his drink, his lips puckered daintily around the straw.  That was a sight to see, Thor Bergstrom, two hundred fifty-ish pounds of full muscle, eyebrows raised and lips sucked into a tight little line in an attempt to look delicate and innocent.  “I know we’ve got a lot more events going on this year. I’m already helping Maria plan, but I know she needs as many hands on deck as possible.”

_ Hands on deck _ , Darcy wanted to giggle, somehow just noticing how much Thor looked like a pirate with his big buffness and his edgy new hairstyle and - and somehow just noticing that this was her fourth whiskey and Coke and they  _ hadn’t touched the dance floor yet _ !  She downed the half a glass she hadn’t finished yet and started tugging on Thor’s arm, just as the DJ transitioned into the dulcet tones of the Ying Yang Twins and Lil Jon.

“Hey, big guy, drink up so we can get low!”  In the millisecond that Thor didn’t recognize the song, his face had been blank, but immediately after that millisecond, he chugged down his Long Island and began to bounce from foot to foot, wiggling his shoulders back and forth.  Darcy couldn’t help the laugh that left her mouth, raucous and loud, but she followed him onto the dance floor, spinning under his hand when he twirled her. On Lil Jon’s command, they dropped it low, and God, if she’d thought Thor innocently sipping a strong ass drink was a sight to see, it was  _ nothing _ compared to Thor dropping it low with his palms on his knees and his ass out, head turned to the side to holler along with the lyrics.

“I’m so glad you’re back this summer!” he shouted in between beats, then bent down to stick his ass on her, grinning from ear to ear.  “And if I’m quite honest.”  _ Thump thump thump _ .  “I’m a bit glad.”   _ Thump thump thump _ .  “That Ian fellow didn’t come.”

Darcy’s heart sank in her chest, but she kept dancing, kept smiling.  “We’ll talk more about it later, bud. Tonight...we dance.” As she grooved to the music, she couldn’t help glancing over at where the Fabulous Four were standing, looking casual...menacing...the tiniest bit sexy.

And realized that, for the second time today, she’d asked about them and gotten the same answers.  Maybe it was time to let the questions die, at least for now.

“I’m gonna step out for a minute, love, I’ll be right back,” she called over the music, patted him on the shoulder, and ducked through the dancing patrons to get to the patio by the pool.

The air was cool and crisp tonight, and a bright enough half moon lit the sky via the reflection in the water.  It would have been incredibly romantic, and for a second or two Darcy wondered what Ian would have done here. Probably put his jacket around her shoulders, whether she admitted to being cold or not.  Probably set a kiss on the side of her head, say something in that adorable little accent about how gorgeous she looked in the moonlight, and make a stupid joke about how she should wear it more often.  And then he would kiss her, and she could feel the ghost of his lips on hers, and the whisper about damn, how dry her lips always were.

Darcy wiped the dew that was forming in the corners of her eyes, then fished around in her bag for her Chapstick.   _ What?  What the hell? _  She checked every pocket, the ones with and without zippers, and the bottom, under the playing cards she always kept in it.   _ Fuck _ .

“Seems like you’ve got a real problem with droppin’ things,” came a soft voice from behind her, and there he was again.  Steve the Life- and Security Guard, all soft eyes and perfect bone structure. And in his hand, her little cherry tube, extended toward her just the way he’d extended the sunglasses that morning, with his brilliant biceps and his gentle smile.

“Looks like you got a problem with multiple identities.”  God, she hoped she hadn’t looked like she’d been crying. And she  _ hadn’t _ , really, it didn’t count as crying if it was only a couple of tears.  “Weren’t you in a Speedo earlier?”

“Weren’t you in a bikini?”  She snatched the Chapstick away from him, as though he were her mother and had found her pile of dirty magazines in her room.  It soothed her lips straightaway, filling the cracks that the breeze and the alcohol and the sun had formed.

“You got me there, Steve the Lifeguard.”  The gentle smile turned to a gentle smirk, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Steve the Lifeguard?  Haven’t gotten  _ that  _ one yet.”  He stuffed his hands into his pockets, cocking his head to the side as he looked at her, like he was studying her.  “Seems a little unfair you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Darcy.  Lewis.” She thrust her hand between them, and when his warm, heavy hand enveloped it, she couldn’t seem to deny that swooping feeling that had overtaken her stomach.  “You got a real last name, or shall I keep it to Steve the Lifeguard?” And like that, the gentle smirk turned again into a gentle smile, strong and steady.

“It’s Rogers.  Steve Rogers.”

“I think I like ‘the Lifeguard’ better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This one came out faster than I was expecting, but I really hope you enjoy :) Let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy goes home with a former soldier and we meet the Potts-Stark twins.

Darcy wasn’t exactly sure when she’d decided that Steve was taking her home, or whether she’d been the one putting the words together, but all she knew now was that she’d driven up with Jane and that was a hundred percent useless because Jane was a hundred percent banging Loki somewhere around here and would be unavailable for the next few hours, at least.  She would have asked Thor, but he’d started dancing with a tall, slim, dark-haired woman she could only see from the back and based on the way they’d been dancing, uh, that whole situation may have been on its way to banging soon as well.

So Steve the Lifeguard’s offer to take her home after he clocked out came very welcome, since her phone was now out of battery and she wouldn’t let him call her an Uber.

And now Darcy was sitting beside the shallow end of the pool, letting the cool water course over her toes and sober her up a bit while she decided whether Steve the Lifeguard was trying to bang her tonight.

Which wouldn’t happen, by the way.  She’d  _ just _ gotten out of a relationship that she’d thought was going to be lifelong, she didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t going to murder her when they took off, or maybe just toss her body in the trunk of his car as soon as they got to the parking lot.  But beyond murder and bodies in trunks and things, when it came down to brass tacks, Darcy just...wasn’t ready. Like she’d told Thor. Drinking and partying, yes. Flirting, maybe. Probably. Banging and/or dating, absolutely not.

But  _ God _ did it take some willpower to keep telling herself that, especially when he came out of the security office in blue jeans and a beat up bomber jacket over a white tee that clung to him like plastic wrap on a hot day.  He smiled, and for a moment she forgot that, yes, he actually was looking at her, no, there wasn’t anyone behind her, and  _ wow this man was taking her to her real home _ .

(Technically, she and Jane were finally getting a place together at the end of the summer somewhere in town but when boyfriends and sexytime were involved for Dr. Foster, it was best that Darcy stay at home with her mom and her baby brother for the time being.  Yet another good reason for her not to get involved in boy-/girlfriends or sexytime.)

“Thanks for doing this for me, for taking me home,” she babbled as she stood up, sliding her wet feet into her sandals.  “I hope I’m not super out of your way.”

Steve shrugged, and pointed her to the row of lockers around the corner of the office.  “No problem. Just a minute, I’m going to put my gear away and get our helmets.”

“Helmets?” she repeated dumbly, wondering for a brief moment if she  _ was _ still hammered.

“I ride a bike.”

“Harley or Schwinn?”  Part of her was praying it was a Schwinn.  It was the same part that knew that if she were pressed up against him, an engine rumbling underneath the two of them, there was a distinct chance that her panties would mysteriously fly off on the way home.

The part of her that figured it’d be a Harley was mischievously rubbing its hands together and laughing maniacally.  It even had a mustache and a huge office chair that it could spin around in. If she squinted, she could see that part of her stroking a cat and giving away its evil plan.  Which featured, if he indeed  _ did _ have a bike of the motor variety, her wrapping her arms tight around his firm middle and pushing her boobs against his back and hope that he thought that was sexy enough to ravish her there on the road, a la Kim and Kanye.  Or Seth and Franco, if that was your cup of tea.

But now he was chuckling, shaking his head at her, and somehow not one perfectly coiffed hair on his perfectly coiffed head moved out of place.  Her heart both sank and leapt when he tucked his duffel bag of work clothes into his locker and pulled out two motorcycle helmets.

She didn’t know much about motorcycles, and didn’t know what her reaction would have been if it were a different kind, but the fact that the bike in front of them seemed to be a more classic model than a newer, sportier one sort of gave her the heebie jeebies.  She doubted Steve rode it irresponsibly (hence the extra helmet always on hand), but an old bike...she wasn’t sure.

“Is it...old?”

“It’s, uh, designed to look a little more classic, but fairly new.  Safe, if that’s what’s got you all in a twist.”  _ In a twist? _  Was it just today that she’d made fun of Jane for sounding like she’d jumped out of 2008?  This guy sounded like he’d come straight out of the age that started The Twist.

But he was smiling.  Poking fun at her. Trying to be  _ friendly _ .

“Alright, cowboy, strap in and let’s get this show on the road.”

He hopped on first, nudging up the kickstand with his heel before the machine chugged to life, sputtering out of the - was it called a tailpipe also? - exhaust, Darcy guessed.  She wedged her purse in front of her before settling into place behind him. Steve afforded her a backwards glance, and through the face shield asked whether she’d remembered her Chapstick this time.

“Shut up.”

The engine roared to life beneath them, and Darcy’s arms and thighs involuntarily tightened around Steve’s middle.  She felt the rumble of his chuckle and had to resist the urge to swat him, before they lurched out into the darkness.

He sped smoothly through the quiet streets of West Avery, Pennsylvania, the full summer trees blurring into standard suburban houses, blurring into small parks and the occasional baseball field.  Darcy was giving him directions in a volume that seemed both too loud and too quiet at once, and she was certain her voice would have been quavering had he actually been able to tell the tone. Whoever had come up with that whole idea had been right - there  _ was _ something freeing about riding motorcycles.  Too freeing.

Thankfully and yet not so thankfully, the ride didn’t take too long.  West Avery was small, and Darcy knew the streets well. Steve pulled up to the curb gracefully, wheeling the bike around and pushing down the kickstand with his heel.  Darcy dismounted a little less gracefully, with each leg flailing before it hit the ground. Steve, for his part, at least tried not to look like he was laughing, but the megawatt smile that continued to glow from his lips after he removed his helmet gave it away.  After she’d steadied herself she followed suit, passing back his extra helmet.

“Thanks for the ride, Steve the Lifeguard.”  She shuffled a little uncomfortably from foot to foot.  It was one thing bringing someone back to her own place, another entirely to bring someone to her mom’s house, her childhood home.  “Can I, uh, can I offer you some gas money?”

His smile grew brighter, but he shook his head.  “Nah, it’s alright. There might be something you could help me with, though, if you’ve got the time.”  Darcy’s heart skipped in her chest, and again that swooping feeling jolted through her stomach.

“Yeah.  Yeah, for sure.”

He clicked the engine off, then brushed a hand backwards through that perfect hair, looking like he’d come straight from an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue.  Minus the fake tan and douchey man-sandals.

“Well, some of us have got next weekend off, and, uh, we’re all pretty new in town.  Only other guy out of our...well, our circle, I guess, that we’ve spent any time with is Thor, and he’s got an event going on next weekend.  So I - we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind showing us what there is to do around here.”  **_We_ ** _ were wondering.  If you could show  _ **_us_ ** _ around.   _ Well, not a date (which was good, because she would have said no, anyway), but at least she’d get to spend some time with some more super hot super ex-soldiers.

“Yeah,” she stuttered.  “Yeah, yeah, that’d be awesome.  I mean, as you saw, there’s not a whole bunch to do besides the club, but we’ve at least got a bowling alley.  And a mini golf course. Which, by the way, actually has a pretty dope little arcade, so it’s not, like... _ dreadful _ .  But I can see if there’s more going on this weekend.  Avery pulls some out  _ some _ stops over the summer.”

“That sounds great, Darcy.”  God, she’d never liked her name as much as she did the moment it rolled off his lips, sweet and tangy.  Speaking of lips, now seemed like a good time to compulsively slather hers in cherry Chapstick for the three-thousandth time today.  “It’s, uh, it’s nice to have a friend in your corner when you’re one of the new guys.”

“For sure.”  She slipped her hand into her purse for her keys, then drew them out without looking back up at him.  “You working every other day this week, then?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Okay.  I’ll, uh, come find you after I’m off work one of these days.  Figure out a game plan. I guess I’ll...see you then.” He moved toward her, and she saw the moment in his eyes where he decided hugging her might be unwelcome.  She didn’t say anything, but let him pat her shoulder both awkwardly and warmly, that sincere smile still painted across his lips.

“I’ll see you then, Darcy Lewis.”

Those weren’t butterflies in her stomach.  They were eels, wriggling with ecstasy because good lord Steve Rogers was even more handsome, sweet, and charming up close.

*****

“Darcy Lewis, it is not even nine o’clock, please tell me you’re not hazing my sweet little daughter into a biker gang.”

“Cool your jets, Tony, it’s temporary.”  Most people referred to Anthony Edward Stark, Jimmy Neutron-esque former boy genius as ‘Mr. Stark,’ in fear of the many cool gadgets that he’d manufactured that could obliterate, maim, or otherwise disable them.  Darcy called him Tony because he’d been friends with her dad.

At this moment, he was referring to the stick-on mermaid tattoo that Darcy had applied to his four-year-old daughter Marielle, who was waving it in her father’s face like a bracelet.

“Daddy, look!  Look what Miss Darcy gave me!”  He scooped up the little strawberry blonde, who had the face of her mother and the brains of her father.  “She says she’s got hundreds, but I don’t think hundreds can fit in her pockets.”

“I think  _ you  _ are right, buggo.”  He kissed the top of Marielle’s pig-tailed head and then set her down, mussing up the spot he’d just pressed his lips on.  “Alrighty, Lewis. You know the drill: lunch at noon, naps at one, and not too much of that mind rot they call  _ PJ Masks _ .”  He wagged a quasi-threatening finger at her, just as Pepper Potts emerged from their bedroom carrying Courtney Potts-Stark, who was wearing probably the coolest pair of sunglasses that Darcy had ever seen, and she’d wager they were probably more valuable than Darcy’s entire  _ life _ .  Pepper shifted Courtney into Tony’s arms, and starting flipping through her fancy little wallet.

“There’s been some changes to the company, so here’s my number at the office, Tony’s work cell, and Happy’s personal.  You’ve still got our personal numbers?”

“Yup.  You guys have a good day at work.  I’ll see you at...six?”

“Six it is, Lewis, and by the time we get back they’d better not be leather-clad or watching Pee-wee Herman dance on my kitchen table.”  Tony had tilted on his own sunglasses, which, again, were likely more valuable than everything Darcy owned put together.

“Can’t make any promises,” she shrugged, gingerly grabbing Courtney out of Pepper’s arms.  “Hey, cutie. You still sleepy?” Courtney nodded, and both Pepper and Tony took turns to kiss her goodbye.  Marielle was waving her parents out the door, tugging on Darcy’s jacket to see if she could find any more tattoos.  “You wanna play some Legos with me?”

“I wanna play in transportation,” she said in her soft little voice, then yawned adorably, pointing toward the playroom down the hall.  Courtney tended to have a hell of a time if she woke up too early, much like her mother, but once she got into gear she was unstoppable.  Transportation was her favorite part of the playroom, where she could play  _ The Fast and the Furious  _ with the Hot Wheels her dad had custom designed for her, crashing cars and motorcycles and making them do sweet jumps off the little plastic parking structure.  Marielle may have taken after her dad in the technical wits department, but Courtney had Tony’s drive and Pepper’s cunning.

Darcy hoisted Courtney onto her hip with one hand and got hold of Marielle with the other and ushered them to the playroom.  But as she played Dom Toretto on one side and held the wet washcloth to yet another tattoo on the other, she couldn’t get the previous day out of her head.  The sunglasses. The dance floor. The cold air tugging at her chest. Her body curled around Steve’s as they rumbled through the streets of town. And then falling into bed too tired to dream of anything but the warm smell of his jacket.

She could still smell his jacket, if she was being honest.  Leather and some sort of sharp musk that reminded her of nights by a bonfire.  Not quite smoke, smokers had a very distinctive smell. This was different. Like summer.

“Miss  _ Darcy _ ,” Marielle whined, fingering through Darcy’s pockets for another tattoo.  “Can I  _ please _ have another one?  Just one more, please?”

“ _ One _ ,” Darcy emphasized, then pulled the paper off the most recent one, a Batman symbol on Marielle’s forearm.  “Your daddy will kick my butt if I decorate you too much, Ellie.”

“You said ‘butt.’”  Marielle made a funny face, giggling all the while, and let Darcy apply a last tattoo, a big, buff motorcycle, to her wrist.  “Yay, it looks so pretty!”

“What do you say, kiddo?”

“Thank you, Miss Darcy.”  As soon as the last tattoo had dried and before Darcy was ready for it, the little one had slung her arms around her neck, squishing her cheek against Darcy’s.  After a moment, Marielle let go and sighed, picking up a coloring book from a nearby shelf. “I love you, Miss Darcy.”

“Love you, too, Ellie.”

“But  _ I _ love you, Miss Darcy,” Courtney chimed from her cars, shooting a red Ferrari up a ramp and off the tiny parking structure.

“I can love both of you, Courts.  And I do. And that’s what makes me so cool.”  She winked, prompting Marielle to make a face and fling herself into Darcy’s lap.

“You’re not cool, Miss Darcy.  You’re kinda...old.”

“ _ Ellie _ .”  Darcy would’ve uttered it, equally scandalized, had Courtney not beat her to the punch, eyes wide and warning.  “You’re not s’posed to tell people they’re old. She’s not even super old.  _ Daddy _ is super old.”   _ Fucking A _ , giggles burst out of Darcy’s gut, shifting into belly laughs, shifting into rich guffaws, shifting into knee-slapping and wheezing that caused Marielle to slither out of her lap and stare at her in a combination of amusement and fear.  “Miss Darcy, you’re not gonna tell Daddy I said that, right?”

“No,” she choked, before wiping the tears from her eyes.  “No, I won’t tell your dad. Holy sh - holy cow. You girls crack me up.”

At that moment, her phone chimed in her pocket, the generic  _ ding _ sound that she’d been too lazy to change since getting the stupid thing.  Marielle’s eyebrows shot up her forehead, and she and Courtney began to trade excited glances.

“What’re the looks for?”  Darcy drew the phone out of her pocket, swiping idly over Jane’s message.   _ Need to call you soon, naptime at 1? _

“Is that your  _ boyfriend _ ?” Marielle asked, her own giggles rising to her lips.

“I don’t have a boyfriend, sweetie.”

“Daddy said you did.”  Darcy’s heart sank. Shit.  She probably hadn’t caught Tony up yet, not that it was any of his business, but it was natural he’d think she was still with Ian at this point.  But this at least meant that the rumor mill at the club wasn’t spreading things too quickly about her, at least not to old farts like Tony Stark.

“I  _ used _ to, sweetie, but not anymore.”

This seemed to take both of them by surprise, as Courtney frowned and crossed her arms almost defensively.

“Uh, did you have a boyfriend yesterday?  ‘Cause Mommy told Daddy she saw you with the handsome boy  _ yesterday _ .”

“Thor?  Thor and I are friends, honey, he isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Noooooo.”  Courtney huffed in frustration, and under the dark hair and clever eyes of her father, her mother glared up at Darcy, ready to chastise her for her ignorance, impudence, or both.  “Thor is too funny. Mommy told Daddy the handsome boy was talking to you at the pool yesterday. We didn’t see him ‘cause we were at  _ daycare _ .”

Darcy’s heart jolted.  If they knew Thor then they knew Loki, so it couldn’t have been him they meant.  The only other boy she’d talked to at the pool had been Steve the Lifeguard.

“Steve the Lifeguard?  Oh, no, honey, Steve the Lifeguard is my friend, too.  He’s very nice, but he isn’t my boyfriend either.” Her stomach was tumbling over itself.   _ Oh God Pepper thought they were together and fuck had she said anything to anyone other than Tony _ ?  

Courtney was rolling her eyes, and resignedly returned to her cars.  Marielle stared at Darcy a moment longer, then shrugged and found her forgotten coloring book, tracing the outlines of the red Power Ranger.  Darcy’s phone  _ dinged  _ again, another text from Jane:  _ If what I’m hearing is true and it better not be true bc i haven’t heard it from you yet i’m going to have a fucking cow darcy esther lewis text me NOW _ .

“Hey, girls, I’m going to go to the potty really quick.  Can you stay in here, please? I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she got to the bathroom, she locked the door and dialed Jane’s cell, wringing the hem of her shirt.

“Hi, what the fuck?” Jane burst indignantly, answering on the first ring.

“‘What the fuck’ me, what the fuck  _ you _ , dude?  You’re blowing me up, what in fresh hell is going on?”

“Did you or did you not leave the bar last night with Steve the Lifeguard on the back of his motorcycle?”  Darcy could hear the light fury in her voice, and imagined Jane with her hands stumped to her hips, a glare darker than even mini-Pepper’s setting her eyes on fire.

“Yes, I did.  He  _ just _ took me home, dude, nothing happened.”

“That’s not what Emily Dwyer was telling everyone this morning at brunch.”  Darcy held the phone away from her face for a moment, closed her eyes, and fended off the urge to vomit.  She took a deep breath, rubbing her temples, and then brought it back to her ear.

“Jane.  I am twenty-seven years old.  I don’t think I can physically do the whole ‘high school rumor-spreading’ bullshit anymore.”

“Well, the bullshit’s doing you, Darce.  It’s going around that after everything with Ian, you’re now sleeping with Steve the Lifeguard in some illicit love affair and I guess it’s also rumored that he’s cheating on Sharon from finances with you.”

“Sharon from finances?  Who the hell would cheat on Sharon from finances with  _ me _ ?”

“Apparently Steve the Lifeguard, dude.”  Jane was sighing exasperatedly now, and the image of flaming anger vacated Darcy’s mind’s eye, replaced by Future-Dr. Jane Foster pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head.  “Okay, I know you’ve got the twins you’re looking after, so I’ll talk to you soon. You have dinner plans tonight?”

“Dilly’s at seven with you?”

“I’ll see you then.”  She paused, and Darcy imagined her tugging on the ends of her hair, getting all shifty-eyed.  “Love you, man.”

“I love you, too.”

Darcy took another deep breath, then raked her fingers backward through her hair.  Good grief, Charlie Brown, this was going to be a long summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed, and whether you did or not, let me know what you think :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone gets to know each other a little better.

Darcy shook pepper furiously over her eggs, attempting to mask the shaking of her hands with her clenched grip.  Meanwhile Jane watched, occasionally turning over the flake of her chicken pot pie with her fork.

“So he took you home.  And that’s it?” The steam from the inside of her pie wafted upward, and Darcy could smell the hot chicken, the goopy white cream, and the warm carrots.  Darcy nodded, then decided to chop her eggs into little pieces and separate them across her plate. “And you guys are hanging out this weekend, too?”

“As a group.  He said ‘we’ when he talked about seeing the town.  If I could figure out where to take them...and if I could figure out who all is going.”  Jane, ever suspicious, quirked an eyebrow, as if to ask Darcy how dumb she really was for not finding that out with four days to spare.  “Hey, when a hot guy invites you to his motorcycle and then asks to hang out with you and his friends, you sometimes forget to ask questions.”

“Well...you could take them to West Gate?  They’ve got a cool patio.” West Gate was a casual bar uptown that had a jukebox, shuffleboard, and the occasional DJ inside, and on the patio a cluster of fire pits and a ping pong table.  Jane and Darcy had spent plenty of time there, but it seemed that, as the days went on, more and more of the bro-y type had taken residence and had started fights every chance they got. Darcy had even broken one up between a skinhead and a firefighter she’d met earlier that night.  She’d (drunkenly, to be honest) jumped in between these two huge dudes and straight up told them to walk the fuck away. And then she’d been drunkenly shoulder-checked by one of skinhead’s homies and told  _ him _ to walk the fuck away.

“I want to show them a good time, not dump them into a frat boy cage match.”  Darcy scratched her chin with the butt of her fork while Jane finally helped herself to her pot pie, scooping up as much chicken and veggies as she could manage.  “What about Cuesta? It’s a hair pricier and pretty damn hipster, but at least it’s not so bro-tastic.”

“Cuesta could work.  Not too hipster, but the whole speakeasy thing is cool  _ and _ helps with the, uh, privacy thing, if you  _ wanted _ to get to know Steve the Lifeguard a little better.”  An unholy flush burned in Darcy’s cheeks, much to Jane’s amusement.  “C’mon, Darce, it’s been damn near six months. For my sake, for my  _ Jersey Shore _ side, please do something about Steve the Lifeguard, or about  _ someone _ .  It’s like I can feel the sexual frustration just pulsing off you.”

“Janie,” Darcy sighed, and pushed her eggs to the opposite side of the plate, watching the pepper stick to the porcelain on the way there.  “I’m gonna level with you. After everything with Ian, even after six months now, I, like...I’m tired. Okay?” She balled up her napkin and dabbed at the water ring that had condensed under her Coke glass.  “I’m tired of jumping that cliff between knowing what I’m gonna get and knowing there might not be anything on the other side. The cliff is scary and I was afraid of knowing what I was going to get with Ian but I’m...I don’t know, I guess I’m happy to stand by and watch everyone else jump or stay knowing.”

Jane was silent, and for a moment Darcy listened to the clinks and chimes of the other patrons’ forks and Coke glasses and pondered the pepper specks on her plate.  The weight of the day was finally settling in her bones, after spending it with the tiny terrors, and she was feeling ten times older than she had in a long while. Serious adult shit with Jane, philosophical answers that actually peeked into her soul rather than deflecting, like all the jokes she made.

“I’m not saying it’s never, Jane.  I’m just saying...I need a minute in the chain gang.  On the sidelines. And I’m saying that minute lasts longer than six months, because in the course of my life...I think I deserve a long minute.”

“Okay.”  Jane set her fork down on top of her still perfectly folded napkin, and the chicken pot pie juice bled through the thin paper.  “Okay. You’re right. You deserve a long minute.” Darcy put her hand over Jane’s and squeezed. “But, Darcy...again, for me. Being on that chain gang means you’re still in the game.”

Darcy smiled.  “Still in the game.”

*****

“I’m gonna be honest with ya, doll, I’m feelin’ a little underdressed for this place.”

Predictably, he wasn’t.  Steve had swapped the white tee for a white button-down, but the perfect-fitting jeans, the bomber jacket, and the great hair had stayed, and he looked better than anyone else in the place.  And the use of ‘doll,’ like he really did just jump in from the 40s, well, if her stomach hadn’t been doing somersaults before, it certainly was now. Darcy led their group past the swanky tables, to the restaurant bar in the back.

“Have a little faith, Rogers,” Loki chimed in, looking perhaps tied for second-best with his slim tie and his slick hair.  “It’s been my personal experience that Darcy Lewis knows what she’s doing.”

“‘Preciate it, Loki.”  She found the little black box on the wall that looked a lot like the air conditioning controls and dialed a few numbers into the PIN pad.  To her left, a panel on the floor slid into the wall, revealing a latch on one of the floorboards. “And what might this be?” When she pulled on the latch, opening the trapdoor, Steve raised his eyebrows and nodded in an expression that Darcy hoped was approval.

“Wow.”  He gestured for her to descend the stairs under the trapdoor first, so she did, ducking to avoid the low doorframe and squinting in the dimmed light. The stairs led to a narrow tunnel lit by red neon on the ceiling, which, about forty feet later, opened up to the heart of Cuesta.  It was an odd mix of  _ Stranger Things _ (the neon and the massive corner of old school arcade games),  _ The Wild One _ (the slightly smoky atmosphere, the Marlon Brando poster, and the pool tables), and  _ Gatsby _ (the huge bookcase that comprised the walls on either side of the slender entrance).

“It looks as though the last century of Americana threw up in here,” Loki muttered, then grunted at the behest of Jane’s elbow in his stomach.  “I mean...it’s lovely.”

“Hey, this was our favorite place last summer.  Be thankful we even considered bringing you here.”  Jane leaned into Loki’s side, a gentle smile spreading across her lips.  God, they were cute. Darcy was slightly okay with dying alone if those two would be together forever.

“You guys wanna grab a table?  First round’s on me.”

Sam Wilson exchanged a look with Bucky Barnes, each man’s eyebrows lifting mischievously.  Something told Darcy they’d get on swimmingly with Loki, once they got over the whole holier-than-thou front he liked to put up around strangers.

“How’s the old fashioned here?” Sam asked.

“I’m more of a whiskey sour kinda girl, but they distill their own well stuff, so I’m about it.”

Sam would have an old fashioned anyway.  Bucky begrudgingly wanted the same, and articulated it with a hearty eye-roll.  Natasha wanted a vodka neat (at which Darcy tried not to have too much of a  _ hot damn _ face on, but probably failed), and Loki would have his margarita.

“I’ll come with you,” Steve said softly, striding beside her on the left while Jane took the right.  “And help carry drinks.”

“That’s so sweet of you.”  Jane was conveniently smirking behind the curtain of Darcy’s hair, and punctuated her statement with a very unsubtle pinch to her best friend’s arm.  “What are you getting, Steve? It is Steve, right?”

“Certainly is,” he chuckled, and Darcy began to wonder if there  _ was _ such a thing as sexy chuckling, and why he had the goddamn right to chuckle sexily.  “A Blue Moon, Darcy, if it’s no trouble.” Just the sound of her name leaving his lips was enough to tickle that sensitive spot in her belly, barely north of her hips.  Too handsome and too polite, what gave him the goddamn right?

“Hey, there.”  The woman behind the counter was the same bartender from the previous summer, only it looked like she’d recently pierced her eyebrow and had shaven some sweet designs into her undercut.  Darcy vaguely remembered talking Dungeons and Dragons to her last year when she and Ian had been considering joining a campaign. “What can I do for you guys?”

“Hey - Gretchen, right?  Good to see you again!” Darcy paused to count off each drink on her fingers.  “Let’s see - we brought a bunch of newbies, so hopefully the bunch of us’ll be around pretty regularly this summer.   _ I’m _ gonna get a whiskey sour.   _ He’ll _ have a Blue Moon.”  She dared to rest her hand on Steve’s forearm before pulling it back again and continuing to count.  “A shot of vodka, one margarita, two old fashioneds, and whatever Janie wants.”

“I’ll have a Blue Moon, too, actually.”

Gretchen nodded, already starting to work her magic on the mixed drinks and lining them up on the bar.  “You ladies back in town for the whole summer, then?”

“Yes’m.”  Jane grabbed her and Loki’s drinks when they were ready.  “How’s the season been for you so far?” Gretchen shrugged, then carefully sliced the orange peels to garnish Sam’s and Bucky’s drinks.

“Slower, now that the college kids have gone home, but when the usual crowd comes on back, like you guys, it’ll bounce back.  So where’d the newbies come from?” She winked at Steve before topping off the foam on his beer and sliding it to him across the counter.  He did that sexy chuckling thing again, and nodded appreciatively for the beer before tucking it into his elbow and reaching for the other glasses on the bar.

“Mutual friends?” he asked, glancing at Darcy as if for her approval.

“Yeah, mutual friends, I guess.  Steve here introduced me to the thrills and terrors of motorcycles the other night.”  She nudged him gently with her elbow, and to her anxious delight, he actually smiled wider and nudged her back.

“I don’t think I’m  _ that _ bad of a rider, now.”  He’d gathered the old fashioneds carefully into his hands.  “I should get these to the boys before they insist they’re dyin’ of thirst.  Thanks a lot, ma’am.” He nodded to Gretchen again, and, as he turned to make his way over to the table the super hot super spies had occupied, inexplicably and totally blatantly winked at Darcy.   _ Dude, what is it with this guy and winking? _

“So...speaking objectively and completely as a third party observer,” interjected Gretchen after a pause, “ _ that _ man is a tall drink of water if I’ve ever seen one.  And I don’t partake in the man brand of water.” She continued scrubbing down glasses while Darcy and Jane exchanged a look, with more of Jane exchanging the raised eyebrows and  _ please-bang-him _ eyes look and Darcy returning the  _ oh-my-god-please-let-me-live _ look.

“He’s very nice,” offered Darcy lamely, directing her eyes into her own glass and wishing,  _ wishing _ , she could dive into it and never swim back out.

“Honey.”  Gretchen stopped scrubbing the glasses and looked up at her in earnest, and Darcy had never seen anyone quite fit the definition of ‘earnest’ so...well, so earnestly.  “He’s got a face Adonis would kill for. And don’t act like you can’t see all them muscles under his jacket. If the looks and the manners don’t do it for you, I dunno what will.”

“Gretchen, I only just met him  _ this week _ .  To _ -night _ is getting to know him, which I hopefully don’t fuck up like I’ve done with everything else close to a relationship I’ve ever had.”  A faint blush rose in her cheeks, and she traced the sweating rim of her glass with her index finger. “Dating just isn’t so appealing right this second.  If anything, by the end of tonight, I want to have a few more friends. That’s it.”

After considering Darcy, Gretchen shrugged in defeat and returned to her glass-scrubbing, thankfully not seeming to have taken too much offense to Darcy’s defensiveness.  Darcy made sure to add a few extra crisp bills to the check when Gretchen presented it to her.

“Thank you very much,” said Natasha smoothly when Darcy handed her the shot of vodka.  “Y’know, Lewis, this is a pretty cool spot. How’d you hear about it?”

Darcy helped herself to the spot on the sofa Natasha had left between herself and Bucky, who was rocking a low ponytail today, and stirred the contents of her glass, watching the reddish bits on the bottom dissolve.

“Well, Jane and I were a little delirious one night after studying and needed to find a place to drown our sorrows, but the usual spots were clogged up with frat boys and predator grandpas.”  Sam snorted into his drink, eliciting an equal if not larger snort from Bucky.

“And what, pray tell, is a ‘predator grandpa’?”  Sam had recovered from the sharp sting of bourbon in his nose and was wiping his upper lip with a napkin, unable to conceal the smirk he wore.

“A predator grandpa is a guy who looks all gentle and elderly and kindly at first, like he’d volunteer to take you for dinner and chess at four in the afternoon.”  Darcy popped the Maraschino cherry out of her drink and caught it between her teeth before savoring the sweetness on her tongue. “But when he somehow ends up at a bar at eleven at night, he watches you like some kind of after hours goblin, just waiting to gobble you up once he gets you alone.”

“Predator grandpa,” Natasha repeated, shaking her head in amused disbelief.  “Jesus.”

“So…” Jane started out, jumping in just before the silence shifted into a tense pause.  “How did you all end up in West Avery? Doesn’t seem like a place most people aspire to relocate to these days.”

Steve shrugged.  “Nick Fury sent out a call that he was looking for help this summer.  Your, uh, head of security over at Odin & Sons? We all worked together in the military, and if it hadn’t been for that man and his crazy brain, I think some of us wouldn’t be here today.”  He looked around at his compatriots, as if for their stamps of approval. “I know security plus aquatic babysitting isn’t terribly glamorous, but West Avery’s got a lot of opportunity if you look close enough.”

_ Body like a dream, face of a god, pristine manners, genuine kindness, and on top of all that, loyalty and optimism to boot.   _ God, if Darcy hadn’t been on a celibate mission this summer, she could imagine that West Avery opportunity including Steve taking her on a real date, maybe watching fireworks with her on the Fourth of July show that Odin always had during the Fourth barbecue, maybe going to see one of Jason’s baseball games at their local Babe Ruth field... _ if _ she had wanted to pursue something preposterous like that.

“Plus, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner than most of the cities on the East Coast,” Sam added, wandering over to one of the pool tables.  He picked up a stick, studying the blue-powdered end. “Hey, Barnes, you ready for me to kick your ass at pool, too?” Bucky rolled his eyes and bounded over, while Natasha leaned toward Jane and Loki, asking something about the events being coordinated at the club this summer.

“Sorry about those two,” said Steve quietly, nodding at his compatriots at the pool table.  “They’ve been trying to outdo each other since they met.”

“Was that long ago?”  Darcy thumbed the top button of her blouse, suddenly self-conscious now that everyone else was occupied.  When Steve leaned across the coffee table to speak, she patted the spot that Bucky had just vacated.

“Not too long.  We only met with Sam about...four years ago?  Bucky I’ve known almost forever, and Nat since bootcamp.  We joke that Sam’s the oldest  _ and _ youngest of our group.”  He paused, tracing the rim of his pint glass with his fingertip.  “Have you known Jane and Loki long?”

“Yeah, grew up with Loki.  Our dads were friends since, like, the seventies.”  She smiled with the fond recollection of the washed-looking photos of Samuel and Odin with their long, flowing hair and cheesy grins.  “I worked with Jane in college. After she graduated her second time around, she moved up here to look into doctorate programs. And hang out with me.”  Steve nodded, and it was starting to stun Darcy, the way that he maintained such continuous and rapt eye contact.

“Where did you go to school?”  He cocked his head adorably, that finger still absently ghosting across the edge of his glass.

“ASU for undergrad, which was probably a mistake.”  The distracting combination of whole neighborhoods of frat houses and constant sweltering heat had nearly forced her to continue to another year, if she hadn’t signed up last minute for summer school.  “But somehow, and I chalk it up to my work with Jane, because she’s a complete genius, I landed a grad spot just down the road at Princeton.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up his forehead, and if she weren’t mistaken, those were the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Princeton.  That’s...that’s pretty impressive.”  He crossed his arms over his chest, and for a wild moment one of Darcy’s early psychology classes flashed in her mind, reminding her that people with that particular body language tic were feeling defensive.  Darcy pretended that her heart didn’t just sink in her chest.

“Thanks.”  She let the uncomfortable pause fall between them, silence almost louder than the hubbub all around.  She glanced at their friends: Sam and Bucky, who’d shifted effortlessly into smirky antagonism; Natasha, who’d shifted effortlessly into snarky and yet intellectual banter; Jane and Loki, who’d engaged her with their back-and-forth about Maria, about Memorial Day barbecues and Labor Day tiki parties.  “God. You all make it look so easy.”

“What?”

“Just, like, sliding into it.  Into everything.” She waved at them.  Dropped her hand back into her lap. “Like...are you all just good at  _ everything _ ?”  She didn’t mean to sound drunk.  No one ever means to sound drunk.

Thankfully, Steve smiled, shook his head, and continued to look amused.

“Not everything.   _ Trust _ me, not everything.”  He wasn’t sure whether to go on or not.  Darcy could tell by the way he chewed on his lip, still amused, if a little nervous.

“What, you can’t shoot a birdie in minigolf?  Don’t quite have Schumann’s ‘Tocatta’ committed to memory yet?”

Steve’s smile stretched just a little further.  That sinking feeling in her stomach dissipated when she noticed that it extended to his eyes.

“Well...I can’t for the life of me remember how to spell ‘restaurant,’ I can’t touch my own toes, and...I probably haven’t seen a movie that came out after 1970.”  Darcy raised her eyebrows. The judgment must have effectively radiated from her look of disdain, because he continued: “Pop had us living on a military base since I was born.  He was pretty old-fashioned.” He looked away, fond nostalgia in his eyes, before glancing back up at her. “It was all  _ Citizen Kane  _ and  _ Casablanca _ until I enlisted.”

“Okay, blatant lack of movie education is hardly a character flaw, but I’ll definitely have to arrange some marathons for you.  If you’re up for it.” She may have been imagining it, but had he inched just a mite closer on the sofa?

“ _ Star Wars _ first.  Then  _ Lord of the Rings _ .”  With that he polished off the last of his beer, and slipped her empty glass out of her hands to place on the side table behind him.  “What about you? Got any fatal flaws I oughta know about?”

“You really wanna ask that question?”  There was a twinkle to his eyes that Darcy couldn’t help but match.   _ God _ , he was testing her celibate willpower.  “Okay. I don’t know how to tie my shoes with the bunny rabbit method.  My eyesight is dreadful, hence these.” She pinched the arm of her glasses, lifted them up, and then let them rest again on the bridge of her nose.  “I probably like playing with fire a little too much, literally and figuratively.” She dug the sole of her shoe into the little shag rug beneath their seat.   _ Playing with fire, playing with fire, playing with fire.   _ “And I guess this is when I’m supposed to mention my crippling fear of commitment.”

“Can’t be much worse than some people I know.”  He didn’t look too shocked at her admission, not bothered or perturbed by her complete dashing of the social norm that screamed for her not to be so personal on a first not-date.  Surprisingly, he maintained that amused expression, and leaned forward, pressing his elbows into his knees. “But before I ask you anything else about that, can I get you another drink?”

“Please.”

Jane waggled her eyebrows at Darcy while Steve got up to replenish their drinks.  She let Loki continue trading witty banter with Natasha, and shifted her chair a little closer.

“You two seem to be getting along swimmingly.”

“Yes, I’m very much looking forward to spending more time with my new  _ friends _ .”  The sly smile remained on Jane’s face as her eyes narrowed.

“These new  _ friends _ of yours, are  _ they _ in the game?”  Darcy watched Steve begin to make his way back, leaning over Bucky’s shoulder to trip up his next pool shot, then laughing when the cue missed the ball entirely.  She watched Bucky curse and Sam laugh as well, shaking his own cue at Steve in what looked like a half-warning not to mess up his shot. Steve bent down to set down his pint glass and Darcy’s cocktail, shot her a quick, familiar smile and a nod, as if to ask for a minute with his boys, and returned to the pool table.

Darcy picked up her glass, pretending not to notice the fingerprints his large hands had left in the condensation, and then pretending not to notice that she’d fit her own fingers into the same spots.  

Jane pretended not to notice the way that Darcy’s smile had grown warmer when she’d picked up her drink.

“I think so.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the Lewises, Darcy is emotionally constipated, the Memorial Day weekend festivities commence, and neither Bucky nor Jane acts curiously at all.

“You opened with fear of commitment?”

Rachel Lewis dug her spoon deep into the pint of s’mores ice cream before passing the tub back to Darcy, who had busied herself with twiddling strands of her hair in the glow of the TV.  Darcy pulled her feet out from Rachel’s lap and curled them under herself.

“I panicked, okay?  He is _preposterously_ handsome.”  She sucked the marshmallow off her spoon while Ross Geller said something annoying and condescending on the screen.  Her mother set her own spoon down on a napkin on the coffee table, then reached over to thread her fingers through Darcy’s hair.  Darcy could hear the _oh honey_ coming a hundred miles away.

“You going to see him again soon?”  She plunked down the tub of ice cream next to the spoon on the coffee table, then leaned into her mother’s touch, closing her eyes at the sensation of the fingertips on her scalp.

“He works at the club, so probably.”  Rachel hummed her understanding, then slung an arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

“You think you’re ready for something like that again so soon?”  Darcy heaved a sigh, rubbing the tender area between her eyebrows.

“I think I’m ready to get to know him as a friend.  Everything with Ian…” She paused to tuck her head into the crook of her mother’s collarbone, taking in the sweet scent of Rachel’s vanilla perfume.  “...Mom, I fucked it all up. I really fucked things up with him. I don’t want to end up doing that to someone else, or to have karma come back and bite me in the ass for it.”

“You did fuck things up with Ian,” Rachel mumbled, her thumb tracing the nape of Darcy’s neck.  “But that doesn’t mean you’ll fuck things up with every guy - or girl - you meet. That also means you are entitled to take your time.”  She cupped her hand round the side of Darcy’s face and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Did you know how proud I am of you?”

“I know, Momma.”  Darcy sighed, sleepiness sinking into her bones.  “I know.”

Rachel’s eyes met her daughter’s, and Darcy didn’t miss the tears threatening to spill down her mother’s cheeks.  Neither of them had to say it, but they each knew what the other was thinking.

 _Dad would be proud, too_.

“Is it supposed to get easier?”  Darcy didn’t know she was sniffling until the tears prickled under her nose and a sob rippled through her chest.  “I miss him, Momma.” She fingered the tube of Chapstick tucked into her pocket before Rachel took her hands and squeezed them tight.

“I do, too, baby.”

Samuel smiled up at them from his place on the mantel, sitting dutifully in his large frame propped up behind the box of his ashes.  The picture was taken almost a year before he’d died, when Jason graduated middle school, and he was wearing a suit that was buttoned up too high, a tie that didn’t go with his shoes, and he’d wanted to wear the dirty old sneakers that still sat beside the Lewis doorstep.

( _We were supposed to spread him ages ago, supposed to take him down to the river and let him fall into the water, let him rest, let him be at peace for fucking once -_ )

“I don’t think it gets easier.”  Rachel Lewis’s voice was thick, clogged with grief, and Darcy came tumbling back to real life as her mother wiped her nose with the back of her hand.  “I think we gotta learn to live with it. But it’s never gonna be easier, babe.”

“Yeah.”  She inhaled deeply, letting the tears roll down the sides of her face before she swiped them away.  “Yeah, I know.” Chandler was doing a stupid dance on the screen, which drew the ghost of a smile back to Darcy’s face.  “If they did a trivia game show all about _Friends_ , I bet we’d kick some serious ass.”

Rachel let free a soft laugh.  “You and your brother would. He watches the reruns all the time.”

“How’s his girlfriend?”

“He got dumped today.”  Darcy frowned, leaning deeper into her mother’s arms.  “He’s been out with his friends since this morning.” Rachel brushed a stray lock that had tumbled down her forehead.

“That sucks.  He’ll get through it, though.”

“Yeah.”  They sat in silence while the _Friends_ crew continued their shenanigans on the screen, both mother and daughter thinking of the men in their lives and wondering whether they’d get through it, too.

*****

“You _really_ don’t have to do this.”  Jason didn’t bother to look up from his phone, swiping about while he played some knockoff Candy Crush.

“I mean, you’re already dressed for it, so unless you want me to turn us around, take you home so you can wallow in the stings of first heartbreak, and come back…”  She let the sentence trail off as they pressed on through the progressively fancier neighborhoods of West Avery.

Jason sucked his lower lip in before setting down his phone, then proceeded to fiddle with the window controls on his right.

“I’m gonna be fine.  You and Mom have been walking on eggshells with me since I told you guys about me and Jasmine.”  His hand drifted up to his mouth, and he chewed nervously on the tips of his fingernails. “You know, not that I _don’t_ want to spend the day with you.”

“I know,” said Darcy matter-of-factly, keeping her eyes on the road.  “It’s been a while since we’ve spent a day together, though, and I kind of feel like I’m losing my status as Best Big Sister this side of the Mississippi.”

“That’s funny, I didn’t know you ever _had_ that status.”  He dodged her half-hearted punch, but a new grin painted his lips now.  “I’m _kidding_ .  Jesus.  Yeah, it _has_ been a while since we’ve gone to the club, too.  Mom says you got yourself a piece of _eye candy_.”  Darcy popped the cap of her chapstick off and then pressed it back on a few times, watching the blur of the suburbs shift into the brief blur of countryside before they pulled up to the gate.

“Hi, Sam,” she announced to the security box and to the tall drink of water who was currently grinning down at them through his very cop-ish sunglasses.

“Hey, Darcy.  Who’s the kid?”  She flashed the membership keycard for him to scan before he opened the gate.

“Sam, meet Jason.  Jason, this is my friend Sam.  You ask Fury for some alone time from your boyfriend?”  It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his eyes; she practically heard them roll when she mentioned Bucky.

“The way Barnes was goin’ on about that pool shot Steve just so happened to conveniently fuck up for me made it a little difficult not to push him out of the car this morning.”  He started tapping at the buttons on the security register, entering some information on the dinosaur-aged computer Odin refused to get rid of, in spite of Fury’s insistence on the new keycards.  “But I’ll get him back later. Tug-of-war opens at six, and you better believe I’ll be the first one on that.”

“Tug-of-war?   _That’s_ what Hill came up with for games?”

“Give ‘er a chance, Darcy.  There’s a hell of a lot more than tug-of-war.  Y’all have a good time, now.” Jason’s eyebrows raised noticeably while Sam waved them through the gate.

“So...eye candy?”

“Sam is undoubtedly foxy, Jase, but no, he’s not the one Mom’s telling you about.”

“You seem awfully friendly with him after only hanging out once.”  His voice was slightly suggestive, but Darcy shook her head, guiding the car into one of the open spots at the edge of the main lot.

“He was shooting pool with this other guy, Bucky, and asked me to step in when Steve started cheating and screwing with their shots.  I think he thought Steve wouldn’t mess with me, because he doesn’t know me all that well.” She smiled in spite of herself, the memory bubbling at the tips of her imagination.  “I guess I forgot to mention I’m a terrible shot.”

Jason lugged himself out of the car, shielding his eyes from the sun to scan the club for someone familiar.

“So I know you hate Emily Dwyer, but her boob job looks pretty good.”

Darcy was certain the sound of her hand clapping the back of his head could be heard for miles.

“First of all, quit ogling, it’s getting creepy.  Secondly, I don’t hate her.” She pursed her lips when Emily razed her eyes across the two of them, a grimace pulling at the corners of her mouth, before the Rancid Bitch turned back to her cronies and went on with a story of some kind.  “She just lives in high school still...and we’re twenty-six.”

Jason was silent.  But he followed her into the club’s main building, where they met Maria Hill, smiling in red, white, and blue, at the entrance.

“Welcome to the annual Memorial Day Bash.  A program for your troubles?” Darcy unfolded the little pamphlet, her eyes widening at the brightly colored pictures within.  “I told you I had a few new tricks up my sleeve, Lewis.”

“How did you book this?  It looks…”

“They had an exhibit at the Warhol Museum in Pitt last fall.  I got a hold of one of the artists, promised we’d get them some publicity out here and to the alehouse, when it gets set up.  Now, I need to see some ID for both of you, alright?”

“Hill.  You’ve known us basically since Junior here was born.”  She clapped a hand to Jason’s back, and she could’ve imagined him rolling his eyes at her.

“Just something that has to be done, Darcy.”  So she and Jason revealed their licenses, and Maria strapped each of them with a wristband, Darcy’s green and Jason’s red.  “Two drink tickets for _you_ , a meal pass for each of you, and all expenses paid to all festivities with the appropriate color labels.”  Maria’s finger trailed down the list on the pamphlet. “All the limited-supply events are listed here, and are first come, first serve.”

The three of them were silent for a moment, as the rest of the patrons milled about, as their glasses clinked and their flip flops slapped the ground.  Maria was looking up at them, like she was waiting for them to tell her how amazing a job she’d done.

“Jesus,” said Jason under his breath.  He continued to look over the little pamphlet, then turned it over in his hands.  “This is...really cool, I’ll admit.”

“Thank you.”  She flashed a satisfied smile.  “Oh, by the way, I think I saw a couple of your boys out by the pool earlier.  Luke Novak, I think? And Jon Chu?”

He looked to Darcy, who smiled in spite of herself.  They found themselves gravitating toward the pool, and out to the rolling hills behind the club, decked with all means of celebration.

“You should hang out with your friends,” she heard herself saying, even though a pang in her gut cried out for her to keep him here, to spend some time just the two of them.

“I don’t wanna leave you here by yourself - ”

“We can get dinner together, alright?  Maybe hit the buffet tables around five?  That way we don’t miss the lame ass tug-of-war they’re doing at six.”

“You’re the best, dude.  I’ll catch you at five.” He reached around to hug her close, kissed the side of her head, and disappeared.  Realizing she was alone, Darcy pulled her phone and her Chapstick out of her bag.

_Jane my darling my dearest my bestest friend of all time, you around?_

She found herself advancing toward the field behind the pool, where massive inflatable sculptures rippled in the gentle wind.  From some small distance, she spotted Tony and Pepper taking a family photo with the girls in front of an enormous poppy, its petals opening and closing serenely behind them.  Marielle raised a chubby fist and waved to Darcy, showcasing the latest tattoo on her forearm. Darcy smiled and waved back.

“How do you know the Potts-Starks?”

Bucky had snuck far too stealthily up behind her, his hands behind his back, and smiled half-apologetically when she jumped.

“Holy shit.  Hi. Uh, Tony was a friend of my dad’s.”  She paused, watching the breeze brush his perfect locks away from his face.  “I’m nannying for the kids these days. Do you? Uh, know them, I mean?”

His smile shifted, and he held forward his prosthetic arm, whose fingers flexed like real human fingers.

“His dad was a friend of my dad’s.  I grew up at all the Howard Stark expos, all the big tech events.  Tony was in high school when I was a kid, and I pretty much bugged him to death whenever I saw him.  Few years ago, on a mission out east, I lost my arm in a train bombing. Tony designed this one for me.”

“That’s amazing.”  Darcy’s eyes raked over the sleek silver curves; the prosthetic seemed to be a perfect imitation of his own right arm, the gears filling all the same space as the muscles would have.

Bucky tucked both hands into his pockets and stood there admiring the vast sculptures with her, the soft music from the club behind them dying in the wind.

“These are really beautiful,” Darcy said, as the beach ball-sized stars on the huge American flag before them rotated slowly.

“This one’s the general Memorial Day dedication.”  Bucky nodded at the one not far from their feet. “The other ones all have specific wars tied to them.  The QR codes,” he paused to gesture at the small plaque at the bottom of the sculpture, “if you scan ‘em, they list the names of all the known American soldiers who were KIA or MIA.”

Darcy nodded.  A warm burst of respect for Maria gushed into her chest.  It was good of Hill, especially with this new staff around, to remember that this weekend was not simply the frivolity of time off work.

Darcy hadn’t expected Bucky to escort her through the small maze of sculptures, or for tears to prick in the corners of her eyes when they crossed to the ornate Star of David in honor of those fallen in World War II.

“Do you - I could take a photo of you in front of it.  If you want.”

She shook her head, brushing the moisture at the base of her nose with her knuckle.

“That’s alright.  My, uh, I’ve gotta get my mom out here to see this.  She’ll really love it.” Bucky gently pounded his fist against his thigh, his eyes still roving the length of the Star, the little icons that glimmered and whirled in the sunlight.

He waited until they’d gotten to the poppy, a tribute to World War I, to leave her, but it wasn’t without his usual brand of mystery trailing in his wake.

“Have you been in love before, Darcy?”

Her eyes widened, and something heavy dropped in her stomach.

“I...I don’t know.  I think I have.”

Contrary to what she might have expected, he smiled, folding his arms over his chest.

“He has.”  She didn’t need to ask who he meant.  But she did want to ask why he was saying all this, and to her of all people.  “But because of...because of the way things went down, he feels he doesn’t deserve it anymore.”

Darcy’s hands fidgeted down to the zipper of her bag, and she took to popping the cap off her Chapstick, and pushing it down again.  It seemed that Bucky chose to ignore the minute movements, and he pressed forward.

“He’s been through a lot, you know.  I mean...we all have. Him earlier than most, though.”  It was at that moment that Bucky turned away, no longer surveying the sculptures in front of him, but the festivities back near the pool.  “We’ve been friends since we were kids. But _God_ , the time he wastes beating himself up…”

Darcy’s gaze finally followed Bucky’s, and there she saw what he saw.

Steve the Lifeguard, in his day clothes, with Sharon from finances draped across his front.  Their bodies, fused at the middle, swayed to and fro on the dance floor, amidst all the other lovesick kids.

Darcy’s hair fluttered backwards over her shoulders.  She felt the sudden urge to be sick.

When Emily Dwyer’s eyes found her, some fifty yards away, the heat rose from her stomach to her ears.  A small smirk danced across Emily’s lips.

“I need to go.”

*****

_(4) Missed Calls - Jane’s Brain_

_U at mem. weekend bash?  Loki working on stuff w odin.  I need friends lol_

_Hey, been trying 2 get ahold of you 20 mins now where the fuck r u?_

_Darcy.  Call me.  Now._

“Hey, dude,” she sniffled, trying to sound like she hadn’t been sniffling, and muted the phone when the toilet roared to life to suck down the many bits of toilet paper Darcy’d been using to dab away the very unattractive snot that had collected at her Cupid’s bow from the crying she definitely hadn’t been doing over a guy she’d just met.  “Sorry I missed your calls. I got caught up with Bucky at the inflatable sculptures.”

“With Bucky?”  There was a flicker of surprise in Jane’s voice that Darcy certainly hadn’t expected.  Darcy scrubbed her glasses with the end of her shirt, then replaced them on the bridge of her nose.

“Yes, with Bucky.  Why do you sound so surprised?”

Jane paused audibly.

“No reason.  None at all. I just thought your type was more...I dunno, tall, blond, and mostly clean-cut.”

“I might be crazy,” Darcy finally stood from the floor of the bathroom, lugged her bag onto her shoulder, and nudged the stall door open so she could flush out her face in the sink.  “But I think he was trying to hit on me _for_ Steve.  Which...didn’t end up doing much for my case.”

It was like Darcy could hear Jane frown.  Then, she distinctly heard Jane start rustling in the background, getting up from wherever she’d been.  “Where are you?”

“The main ladies’ room.  Definitely not in an emotional shambles.”

The click of the line indicated Jane hanging up, and it took a considerable amount of patience, in Darcy’s humble opinion, for her not to throw her phone a la Naomi Campbell at Jane’s abruptness.

But only moments later she rescinded her phone-throwing desires when Jane shouldered open the heavy sitting room door and rushed through to the sink to pull Darcy in for a near rib-crushing hug.

“Fuck, dude,” the smaller sighed, when she was finally released.  “I needed that.” Her watch read only 3:24, which gave her plenty of time to bum around with Jane before she met up with Jason again.

“So I feel like I kinda cut you off before you could get to the meat of your issue with Bucky hitting on you for Steve, which I...still don’t think I quite understand.”

Darcy inhaled deeply, then plopped down onto one of the velvet-covered couches, trying not to steal a glance at herself in the mirror on the opposite wall.

“It got...really weird.  We were walking around all the sculptures and I kinda got emotional at the World War II one because, you know, Mom was always telling me stories about her wonderful _saba_ , and it all came rushing back and…”  She inhaled again, feeling the weight of her torso rise and fall with her breath.  “He asked me if I’d ever been in love before. And then he went on this whole tangent about how Steve had, and for some reason, felt like he didn’t deserve love, and then he was looking back all dramatically at the dance floor, and there it was.”  She sucked irately at the inside of her cheek, stopping only when she felt the misplaced sting of copper. “Beautiful Sharon from finances, all over him. And good old Wicked Bitch of the East Coast off to the side, eyeballing me like she’d thrown them together herself.”

Jane was silent.  She remained silent as a few of the club wives, tipsy from their drink-ticketed wine spritzers, stumbled into their separate stalls, squatting haphazardly over the toilets.

“Dancing doesn’t mean anything, Darce, you know that, right?”  Something like a whine escaped Darcy’s lips and she regretted it immediately.

“I know I’ve said it before, but I’m fucking done with making myself crazy over dudes.  I need to - I need to focus on all my shit.” Jane was nodding her encouragement.

“Like what?”

“I need to...I need to get a job I want.”  Jane nodded again, as though she were taking mental notes.  “So doing that, I need to start working on applications. Getting interviews.  I need…” Darcy inhaled again, and closed her eyes.

“And maybe you’re right, Jane.  Maybe I need to get laid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of Steve in this one! Things are happening, though, and I do hope that any suspicions you have about any goings-on in this chapter are correct. Not to be cryptic or anything.  
> Oh, and the inspiration for the inflatable sculptures comes directly from the Inflatable exhibit at the San Francisco Exploratorium. If you're a Bay-goer, it looks really interesting :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a lot of lusting and a lot of kissing.

It turned out that Thor Bergstrom’s new lady friend was named Helen Cho, that she was an actual MD doctor, and that she knew how to fucking party.

“Girl, drink tickets don’t mean a thing to the bartenders here.  A little extra tip and a little extra smile means you can have as many drinks as your liver will stand.  Bottoms up.” After Helen passed Darcy a very full single shot of tequila, she linked her arm around Darcy’s, and drank up.  Thor looked on appreciatively, slowly nursing his beer and relishing in the fact that he was right, that the two of them would get on like two peas in a pod.

“Here,” said Helen, and passed Darcy a lime.  Darcy sucked the juice out of it, the sweet citrus drowning the sting of tequila from her tongue.  When the initial haze of the shot passed and a bleary-looking Helen Cho simmered back into Darcy’s vision, a pleasant ache thrummed in Darcy’s belly.

If Thor hadn’t been hooking up with that doctor, that beautiful woman with her legs going up to her neck, Darcy would’ve had her bent over a table somewhere screaming for more.

But maybe now wasn’t the time or place to be fantasizing about banging her friend’s new fling.

Now was the time to sip on her margarita and press her butt up against Helen’s front and wag it back and forth, the time to let the music and the lights take her body where they would tonight.  She felt Thor’s fingers lacing through hers as the three of them danced with the pulsing beat, the night zooming in around them.

The afternoon had gone fairly well, all things considered.  Bucky had barely edged Sam out of the tug-of-war, she and Jason had nearly started a French fry fight during dinner, and Jane had very reluctantly given her space to pursue her getting-drunk-and-laid objective before dashing off on some evening ventures with her boyfriend.

“Call me the minute you feel too fucked up and I’ll come get you.  Okay?” Darcy had nodded, not feeling particularly inclined to follow up with her, and hugged Jane tight on her way out.

But now, without the societal shackles of the baby brother, the Mom Friend, or shame (which was easily remedied with alcohol), Darcy felt free.  Free to dance the night away with her friends, maybe kiss someone she’d never met, and free to forget about tall blond lifeguards with tall blonde maybe-girlfriends.

In the middle of dropping it low, Darcy felt her Chapstick tumble out of her pocket and onto the floor.

“Fuck.”  She felt her knees collide with the floor and her hands scrub desperately across the grime in search of the tiny, absolutely unfindable tube.  After getting her fingers stepped on for the third time, she stood up again in defeat, and called out something unintelligible to Thor and Helen about going to the bathroom.

When Darcy looked in the mirror, she realized that Ian was right.  Her lips were chapped as all fuck. And now, with her last Chapstick rolling around somewhere at Odin & Sons, there was nothing she could do about it.

“Fuck.”  The water was too hot, the soap smelling too strongly of hyper-concentrated grapefruit, but she held her hands under the faucet longer than she needed to, until they were raw and pink.  Taking a deep breath, she plucked the paper towels from the dispenser and rubbed until she was dry. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“You okay?”

The voice as soft and rich as caramel nearly made her jump out of her skin, and Natasha approached the sink beside her, watching her intently through the mirror like a sexy ginger cat.

“Yeah,” Darcy stumbled, using the last of the paper towels to dab at her nose.  “Yeah, I just lost my Chapstick, and that’s kinda...I don’t know, like a security blanket for me.”

Natasha fumbled through what looked like a utility belt, presumably containing all the items necessary to be a productive part of a security detail, and brought out a tiny blue tube.

“Can use mine.”

Darcy’s fingers brushed against Natasha’s when she took the tube, and the fleeting wonder of why the redhead’s hands were so cold passed through Darcy’s head before she pushed her forefinger to the head of the balm and transferred it to her lips.

“Thanks.”  Pause. “I don’t know why I’m such a baby about it, but…”   _ Liar _ .  “...yeah.  But thanks.”

Natasha smiled, pocketed her Chapstick, and stepped forward to the mirror to touch up her mascara.  “So, I saw you on your way in earlier chatting with Hill. You know her pretty well?”

Darcy’s eyebrows raised, but she remained at Natasha’s side, tucking her hair into place in the mirror.  “Yeah, I mean, I’ve known her basically since I was a kid. She started out doing lifeguarding in high school and then got bumped up to management when the old boss went on maternity leave.”  She glanced at the reflection of the woman beside her. “Am I allowed to ask why you’re asking?”

Natasha gave a noncommittal shrug and puckered her lips for re-glossing.  “No reason. Just wanted to...get a little girl talk in while I had the chance.”  Satisfied with her lips, she ran her hands under the water, and had to raise her voice over the rush of the faucet when she asked if Hill was married to one of the members.

Realization dawned in the back of Darcy’s tequila-addled head.  “Oh. No. No, she isn’t.”

“Cool.”  She paused, looking impossibly beautiful, impossibly sophisticated, and impossibly dangerous.  “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about this...cool?”

“Cool.”  Aside from the fact that she could probably snap Darcy’s neck with a half-hearted twist of her hips, there was something both sexy and murderous in that smile that only reinforced Darcy’s thoughts that she was somehow impossibly dangerous.

But God bless tequila for never failing to make her all the more honest.

“Hey, you seen Steve around anywhere?”  Just feeling the words leave her lips made Darcy want to cringe.  She sounded desperate. Needy.  _ Clingy _ for a guy who she barely even knew.

Natasha was smiling.

“He’s out on patrol, somewhere on the golf course.  Should be back…” She glanced at the glittering white numbers on the thin black band on her wrist.  “...in about fifteen.” The corners of her lips turned up further, and it was like the smile itself was dangerous.  “Am I allowed to ask why  _ you’re _ asking?”

“Kind of would rather you didn’t.”  Darcy flashed an apologetic smile and stood up straighter, propping the door open for Natasha on the way out.  “But thanks...for the, you know, the Chapstick.”

“You got it, Darcy.”  As the suave and somehow always put-together woman passed her, Darcy caught a glimpse of her former dance partners engaged in the steamiest kiss this side of Timbuktu.  She tried not to watch the way that Thor’s hands moved across the subtle curve above Helen’s ass with envy. She tried not to feel that familiar tug in her stomach that was both hungry and bitter.

She tried not to realize that summer meant rampant hookups, and that she was being left in the dust with nothing but her fucked reputation, all because she hadn’t been ready to nail her life down in London.

“Think too hard and you might just pop a blood vessel.”

Darcy almost flinched.  The voice to her left belonged to Patrick Dwyer, who’d been every high school girl’s crush the summer he returned from a liberal arts college out west, coming back with the first full five o’clock shadow any of them had ever seen.  Patrick was Emily’s older brother, and while Emily herself was abominable by Darcy’s standards, Patrick had always been polite, making eye contact with Darcy and seeming to give genuine condolences when he’d heard about her dad.

And thankfully, he looked  _ very _ different from his shitty sister.

“How’s it going, Patrick?”

“Good.”  He nodded, and Darcy didn’t miss the way his fingers traced the rim of his glass as he watched her, that gaze still intense and intimidating after all these years.  He must have been about thirty now, running Dwyer Auto-Body in downtown West Avery with his father. And unsurprisingly, he looked good, having grown out of baggy jeans and chain wallets and into tight black t-shirts and the tattoo sleeves that ran up and down his arms.

“I heard you went back to school,” he said, and Darcy’s eyes snapped up from his tattoos and the muscles underneath.

“Yeah, I did.  Just, uh, just finished this spring.”

“Good for you.”  He smiled, and for a moment Darcy swore they were back in high school, Patrick charming every girl in a ten-foot radius without even trying.  “Hey, you want a drink? It’s on me, I mean...to say congratulations on graduating again.”

Darcy sized up the situation.  She remembered being fifteen, and acknowledged that the high school sophomore in her very core was squealing right now, telling her that if she didn’t accept his drink, she was crazy and sophomore-Darcy would never speak to her again.  She also remembered leaving London, and a heartbroken boyfriend with it. But most of all, she remembered that gaping pit in her stomach when she saw her latest chance at love with his hands on another woman.

“A drink sounds great.”  As though there were a spotlight on the empty barstool beside him, Darcy felt herself gravitate into Patrick’s sphere, felt her butt hitting the vinyl, felt her elbows lean into the wooden bar.

Two and a half tequila sunrises later, Darcy was beginning to feel rubbery, bending a little too far forward at the waist every time Patrick made her laugh - which, after the first drink, had been a lot.  She pretended that he wasn’t looking down her shirt when she leaned toward him, because believing that was  _ way  _ easier than acknowledging that the Village Hunk was eye-fucking her cleavage.

Either way, it was impossible  _ not _ to acknowledge that Village Hunk Patrick wanted her.  And after all the questionable stares this summer (especially from his sister), that felt  _ good _ .

“So how is it,” he started, then continued after clearing his throat, “how is it that you’re coming in here single, as gorgeous as you are?”

It may have been the alcohol, but Darcy could feel the blood rushing to her face faster than she could think about it.  Village Hunk Patrick. Calling her gorgeous. Patrick, who’d been the talk of the town ten years prior, for how undoubtedly sexy he’d become.  Patrick, who’d been eyed over the rims of sunglasses by high school girls and their mothers. Patrick, who’d seemed lightyears away in her own neighborhood.

He thought she was gorgeous.

“Well,” she began, looking down into the depths of her drink, waiting for it to give her the answers she needed.  “Your sister hasn’t told you anything, has she?”

He chuckled, shaking his head.  “She’s got some newfangled story every week.  Not particularly useful to listen to every one of ‘em if they’re mostly bullshit.”

“That’s true.”  She sighed, and sipped slowly on her drink until the liquid line sank below the ice, then disappeared.  Every deep breath, in spite of the alcohol, told her that now was neither the time nor the place to share every last disgusting detail of her failed relationship  “I am single. And it kind of is by choice...and I think I want to be single a while.”

He raised his eyebrows, as if he were both impressed and not asking for nearly that much information.  Darcy could feel her blush spread to the back of her neck, and busied herself with crumbling the remainders of ice in her glass.

“Good for you,” he said softly, and even though he wasn’t looking at her, there was something in his voice that told Darcy he meant it.  She tried to calm the swooping in her stomach, and set her drink down on the bar.

“Do you wanna dance?”  Standing up was trickier than she remembered.  Her foot nearly blundered forward, but she caught herself and held her hand out to him, her hips and shoulders already beginning to twist and sway with the beat.  Patrick studied her for a second, like he was seeing something he hadn’t quite noticed before, and rose from his stool with a smile, taking the hand that she offered.

Patrick was like most white boys when it came to dancing: he didn’t have many moves, and he largely depended on Darcy to lead the way.  Not that she minded - Resolutely Single Darcy enjoyed leading the way, enjoyed having this boy’s hands on her hips and his chest pressed to hers.  Resolutely Single Darcy liked the way that her tequila sunrise-stained lips tasted against the stiff gin and tonic that lingered on Patrick’s.

She liked forgetting that she was out in the open, and that the hands sliding up her back and down her ass belonged to someone she only knew as though through someone else’s photo album.  She liked forgetting the man her heart ached for, the man who Natasha had promised would be back five minutes ago, the man who stood at the edge of the dance floor in his security digs, arms crossed over his chest.

She liked forgetting that mess called ‘love,’ and all the hazards that came with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry this one took so long; I had a hell of a time with ABBA requests, which I was so thankful for!  
> Also, I'm sorry if Darcy comes off excessively needy in this one; I promise she's going to get her head together soon :)  
> I came really close to giving away the Ian Fiasco in this one, but I think I want to wait a little longer before really digging into it. Hopefully it'll be worth it in the end :)  
> So again, thanks for reading, and let me know what you think :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy faces the aftermath.

When Adam Levine sang about Sunday mornings, he’d been so optimistic.  Cheery, even. He’d talked about the days like everyone, every week, was woken up by the love of their life with oral sex and pancakes at the ready.  In this beautiful fantasy world, everyone lay in bed the whole day watching cartoons, ordering food, and making love, looking like Greek gods and goddesses in their various states of tousled disarray and undress.

Waking up at Patrick Dwyer’s was nothing like the sunny Maroon 5 song.

Darcy first got up at about five, when it was still dark out and Patrick still lay draped across her, hot and sweaty and smelling like an unfortunate combination of B.O. and Hendricks.  She trudged to the bathroom, tried to puke quietly, reluctantly burned her mouth out with the Listerine on the counter, and trudged out to the couch to finish sleeping.

Thankfully, when the sun hit the sweet spot in the blinds that kept Darcy from falling back asleep around eight o’clock, Patrick was still dead to the world.  Rummaging through their tangled pile of clothes was no cunnilingus and pancakes, but it was better than having to deal with the awkward morning-after conversation that was guaranteed to somehow make Darcy feel shittier than she already did.

She  _ did _ spend most of the day in bed, though, having artfully dodged her mother’s questions about how Jane was doing, if they had fun last night, whether she should remodel the kitchen with the same sort of tile they already had or some new kind that was  _ extra  _ grout-resistant.

Darcy’s temples were throbbing, and no matter how she tried to drown out the pulse of her heartbeat in her head, it was like the previous night was determined to haunt her every way it could.

Some details were fuzzy, but she remembered making out on the dance floor.  Remembered, at one point when she’d excused herself to use the bathroom, someone touching her arm and asking if she was alright.  She remembered sitting in Patrick’s passenger seat with her hand on his thigh, and then sitting in his lap in bed, trading sloppy kisses with him while he sat lazily inside her, only rocking his hips every few minutes, as if he’d forgotten that they were fucking.

She remembered losing her Chapstick, and Natasha letting her borrow some in the bathroom.

_ Fuck _ .

Of course it was Steve asking her if she was alright on her way to the bathroom.  And of course her face had burned hot red when he touched her, when she made some nondescript reply and kept walking like a drunk jackass.

A tiny voice in her head, not sounding unlike Jane’s, was screaming at her as she fumbled with her phone, her eyes blinking into focus.

_ Do not text him.  Don’t you do it. He’s into Sharon, remember? _

Yeah, and she was supposedly into Patrick.  What she’d displayed with Patrick was about eleven billion times worse than what Steve had done with Sharon from finances.  And on top of it, she’d been rude.

At the end of the day, Steve was her friend, a new friend, but it wasn’t his fault that she’d felt some kind of claim over him.  She’d given him no reason to believe that they were anything resembling a couple, and no reason to believe he couldn’t see anyone else.  Shrugging him off like she’d done was plain and simple a dick move. Not the kind of fury you got from a woman scorned.

_ Hey _ , she finally texted him, after a long, decided nap with her blinds firmly closed.   _ I’m sorry if I was an asshole last night.  Hope I didn’t do anything stupid. _

She closed her eyes after hitting send and tossed the phone to the other side of her bed, to keep herself from expecting him to reply immediately.  He probably wouldn’t reply at all. 

But because he was a good guy, better than she deserved, Darcy heard the soft ping of a text within the next few minutes.

_ You’re all good.  Feeling okay today? _

She couldn’t help smiling, even if it made her eyeballs ache a little.

_ Even after I brush my teeth it tastes like I’ve eaten garbage all night. _

Darcy plugged her phone into the wall, pushed out of bed, and got up to find something to eat in the kitchen.  Jason was there waiting for her, sitting on one of the counters with one hand shoved into a bag of Cheetos and the other tapping out a text on his phone.

“Morning, Sleepin’ Beauty,” he said without looking up.  “How was  _ your  _ night last night?”

“Fine,” she lied, crouching a little to survey the inside of the fridge.  “I knocked out at Jane’s after a few too many glasses of wine. Nothin’ too interesting.”

“Bullshit,” he coughed, and Darcy stood upright with a container of sliced watermelon.  Jason was still looking at his phone, eyebrows raised, lips pursed in a firm line.

“Come again?”

“You, like, snuck back in wearing your same clothes from yesterday.  If you’da been at Jane’s, she would’ve let you shower and borrow her clothes.  Same clothes means you had to be somewhere else.”

Darcy gaped at him, stunned, and let the refrigerator door close behind her.  “Why the hell are you smarter than me?”

“It’s not that hard,” he chuckled, and took a moment to crunch on his next handful of Cheetos, finally looking up at her blankly.  “Look, dude, I really don’t wanna know about the shit you get up to with Steve the Lifeguard or whoever it is you’re...involved with, just be careful, okay?  ‘Cause even though I  _ really _ don’t wanna know, I also don’t wanna have to knock anybody out for hurting you.”

“Jason Lewis, you know full-well I’d knock someone out for you long before you could for me, you skinny little twerp.”  He set the bag down and wrapped an arm around her, squeezing her to his side.

“I love you, okay?”  Darcy let herself lean into the hug, reaching around him with the watermelon-free arm to return it.

“Love you, too.  I’ll be careful. I promise.”  She was ready to pull away when Jason’s arm made a full circle over her head; when she looked up, he was sucking Cheeto dust off his fingers.  “Dude, come  _ on _ .”

“I love you, but I also love food.  Not sorry.”

Darcy wriggled out of the hug and opted for a fork before heading back up to her room to eat her watermelon and toss on Netflix in peace.  The moment she plopped into her bed, laptop at the ready, Rachel rapped gently on the door before pushing it open.

“Hey, babe.  You doing okay?”

“Yeah.  Tiny bit hungover still, but okay.”  Her mom smiled half-sympathetically, and Darcy was reminded of the exhibit she’d seen with Bucky the previous day.  “Hey, are you working tomorrow?”

“Not till the afternoon.  Why?”

“There was this really cool inflatable art thing at the club for Memorial Day weekend.  I was wondering...if you wanted to check it out with me for a little bit. If you’re up for it.”  She gathered her thickest comforter in her lap and balanced the watermelon container on top.

Rachel’s face just about lit up; it made Darcy’s heart swell to see her mother so happy.  “We can get breakfast before we go, too? You okay to wake up around eight?”

Darcy grinned back.  “Sounds good.”

Rachel stepped into her daughter’s room and leaned down to kiss her on the head.  “Get your rest, okay? If your dad were here, he’d be giving you a way harder time.”

“I know.”  As soon as the door closed, Darcy clicked on a ghost-hunting show and let her shoulders relax into the pillows behind her.  The beefy host began to bark out questions, and just when the silence indicated there’d be some huge, scary noise, her phone binged loudly on the nightstand.

When Darcy’s heart finally returned to its usual rhythm, she reached over to check who’d texted her.

_ (3) New Texts - Steve the Lifeguard _

_ Been there.  Keep hydrated, it’ll help. _

_ So I was wondering when you’d be up for that Star Wars marathon. _

_ I mean, if you’re okay with it.  And if your boyfriend’s okay with it _ .

Darcy wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel about him believing Patrick had been her boyfriend.  Or what she was supposed to say to clear things up.

A small part of her mind started to backtrack: could she pretend that Patrick  _ was _ her boyfriend?  So she didn’t have to explain that she tended to just make out with and go home with any guy she felt like?

Lying to him wouldn’t get them off to a good start; Darcy didn’t want to begin their friendship from a place of deceit, where she felt like she could tell him whatever she needed to to get out of an uncomfortable situation.  Steve seemed like a pretty understanding guy. If she wanted him to be her friend, her  _ real _ friend, she couldn’t fib - too much anyway - about what he’d seen her doing with Patrick last night.

_ Hey, sorry, was talking to my mom.  Do you have time to start tomorrow afternoon? _

_ I don’t really...have a boyfriend. _

She didn’t bother to hit play on the ghost show while she waited for him to respond.  Instead, she speared another chunk of watermelon onto her fork and plopped it into her mouth.  It didn’t take him long to get back to her.

_ No worries!  Tomorrow afternoon sounds great _

_ Oh, sorry for assuming.  I didn’t mean to intrude _

Darcy was about to reply that it wasn’t his fault, that she probably had an explanation that didn’t really explain it, but Steve was too quick for her.

_ What time were you thinking tomorrow?  We could do it at my place, if that works for you, or if you’d rather be at home, that’s all good, too. _

She’d be lying if she didn’t get a little kick out of him saying, ‘ _ We could do it, _ ’ and if that phrase didn’t make her more than a little nervous, but she tried to push the dirty thoughts out of her head.  Friends first. No getting screwed up over him.

_ I’d say my place, but I’m afraid my brother might scare you off.  Is your place okay? I’ve got the DVDs. _

Her fingers froze over the send button, but she went through with it and added:

_ Is Sharon okay with it? _

She wanted to turn her phone off after sending it, so she wouldn’t have to see whatever he’d respond with.  She wanted to open her drawer, pile the panties and socks in the drawer over her phone, and slam it shut, so she wouldn’t even have to hear the pinging of the text alert.

She almost wanted Steve to drop the conversation there, because then that would mean that he  _ wasn’t _ being honest, that he wasn’t the perfect gentleman she’d pegged him for, and that he’d have to come clean for being romantically involved with someone and then still hitting her up to Netflix and Chill™.  Then she wouldn’t be crazy for still wanting him.

_ Sharon?  Sharon from O&S? _

Darcy closed her eyes.  She could’ve been snarky - could’ve asked him why he wanted to play dumb.

But some sneaking little part of her, deep in the pit of her stomach, was determined to hear him correct her, to tell her it wasn’t what she thought.  She wanted him to  _ mean it _ .

She started to type out a paragraph; he needed to know exactly what kind of girl she was, which meant that he needed to know what kind of bullshit she didn’t put up with.  He had to understand that she wouldn’t settle for guys who played girls, guys who played games. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than what she earned.

_ Shit _ , Steve sent, before Darcy could manage to put a satisfying ending to her little monologue.  She paused, letting his three little dots continue to blink while he formulated a follow-up. When her phone began to buzz in her hand, she watched his name pop up on the screen above the little red and green buttons.  Darcy inhaled, closed her eyes, and pushed one.

“Hey,” she said gently, eyes still closed, and pulled the phone to her ear.

“Hey.”  Steve’s voice was equally soft, and Darcy cursed the ripple of yearning in her stomach.  “So, Bucky just got home. And he told me what you saw.”

“And?”  She squeezed her eyes further shut.

“And I’m sorry for confusing you.  I’m not...not with Sharon. She asked me to dance the other day, and I said yes, and I didn’t know that was...how that would be construed.”  She listened to him sigh, and she could almost hear him pressing his hand against his forehead. “I’m gonna level with you, Darcy, I’m shit with women.”

She snorted.  “Well, that makes the two of us.  I’m even shit with men, too. As you saw last night.”  She paused, and then opened her eyes. “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me, alright?  I don’t  _ normally _ ...just hook up with guys from the club - not that there’s anything wrong with the random hookup scene.  It’s just that I’ve been in a weird place lately, and I...I drank too much, and...I have too much freedom to make shitty decisions right now, so that’s what I’ve been doing.  I hope you don’t think I’m, like, a trainwreck of a human being or something.”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line.  Darcy was surprised that she couldn’t hear the echo of her heart beating through the phone.

But when Steve finally replied, she could almost hear the hints of a smile in his voice.

“Well, we all have our trainwreck moments, and  _ I  _ don’t normally dance with...does Sharon count as a coworker?”  He didn’t wait for her to respond, plowing forward. “Anyway, I don’t think less of you for whatever went down last night.  But I do wanna see you tomorrow, if that’s alright by you.”

She released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, and let herself smile, too.

“Text me your address, I’ll be there at two.  That okay?”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

 

Rachel Lewis pressed her hand to her mouth when she and Darcy came to the World War II inflatable.  There were fewer people around the country club on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend, which gave the Lewis ladies enough room and privacy to walk through the sculptures exhibit at their own pace.  The dull hum of the generator attached to the Star of David barely muffled the sound of Rachel’s gasp.

“Do you like it, Mom?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Rachel sighed, and pulled her daughter closer to her side.  Darcy leaned her head against her mom’s and wrapped an arm around her, watching the sculpture flutter with the wind.  “Your great- _ saba _ would’ve loved this.”

Darcy pressed a kiss to the side of her head, not trying to pretend that she didn’t see the tears rolling down her mother’s cheeks.

“Mrs. Lewis?” came a soft voice from behind them, and when they looked, Bucky was standing there sheepishly with his flesh hand on the back of his neck and his prosthetic lying against his hip.  He smiled gently and raised his hand in greeting. “I, uh, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’m a friend of Darcy’s. I was just wondering if you wanted me to take your picture?”

Darcy’s heart swelled with appreciation while Rachel brushed her tears off with the back of her hand and smiled brightly.

“That’d be wonderful, thank you.”

Darcy handed Bucky her phone and slid her arm around her mother’s shoulders as he stepped to the side to find a better angle.  He bent his knees a little and counted to three, and she could feel her mother straighten up beside her when the shutter sound played.

“I took a couple,” he said, handing her back her phone to show her the photos, which were perfect.  The sun glistened off the sculpture behind them, and the pictures miraculously didn’t reveal the red rims of either of their eyes, or the smeared mascara Darcy was certain coated the corners of hers.

“Thank you so much.”  Rachel sniffled again, but her smile was sincere.  “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh, it’s Bucky,” he said quickly, thrusting his hand between them.  Her mother took it with both hands and shook gently.

“Rachel.  Wonderful to meet you, Bucky.”

“And you, ma’am.  Darcy’s been a good friend to me since me and the guys came to town.”

“The guys,” Rachel repeated, sounding amused.  When Darcy looked up, her mom was flashing her mischievous grin, and suddenly it dawned on Darcy that that face was probably the very same one  _ she  _ wore when she was up to no good.  “Does this include the guy you’re going out with this afternoon?”

“ _ Mom _ .”

“Oh, you mean Steve?”   _ Fuck _ .  Bucky’s lips curled upward into a smirk, his eyes glinted gleefully, and his eyebrows rose about halfway up his forehead.  “Oh, yeah, Steve’s the one that got her to help us all out, getting used to the town and everything. Talks about her all the time.”

“Oh, my God, Bucky, stop.”  Her heart was slamming in her chest, half from embarrassment, and half from...was that excitement?  A flash of delight exploding from her stomach and up her ribcage? That Steve allegedly,  _ allegedly _ , was always talking about her to Bucky?

But he put his hands up in surrender, still smiling brighter than she’d seen him ever smile.  “Alright, okay. All I know is, he’s real excited to start this, uh...movie marathon with you.”

“Movie marathon?” Rachel said, doing anything  _ but _ surrendering.  “What are you guys watching?”

“Starting with Star Wars.  Apparently, Steve’s like a cinematic hermit, and he hasn’t seen anything that came out after ‘70.  I’m just doing my civic duty to educate him in classic American film.”

“Well, don’t you kids plan on getting too crazy, because I’m getting home around four thirty.”  Bucky wagged a teasing finger, and Rachel snorted with mirth.

“You and Steve need to come over for dinner soon, alright?  Text Darcy when you’re off on the same night and I’ll make...something.”

“Mom doesn’t cook much,” Darcy explained.  “But I make some pretty amazing stuffed shells and quinoa salad.  If you guys do end up wanting...you know, to come over.”

“Stuffed shells and quinoa salad.”  He repeated it with a soft note of amused contemplation, the smirk fading into a genuine smile.  “Think I can speak for us both when I say that sounds pretty great, Darcy."

Maybe it was the excitement that Bucky had over going over to her place with Steve, or maybe it was how excited he’d been for her and Steve to get started on movies that afternoon, or maybe it was just how  _ nice _ he’d been through everything, and how he felt like he was starting to become a real friend, but a rush of warmth flowed into her stomach.

As the great Bogart would say, this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long to get out! Hope y'all enjoy :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve and Darcy (try to) watch Star Wars, bond with Sam over pizza and Mario Kart, and Bucky drops a bombshell.

Steve, Bucky, and Sam’s place was unsettlingly clean for an apartment that housed three single men, but Darcy felt pretty comfortable chalking it up to the fact that they’d been in the military together.  It was a nice place, too, at the back of a renovated brick building, and had a balcony that overlooked a rolling hill dotted with cozy-looking suburban neighborhoods.

“You guys got the digs, huh?” Darcy asked, running her free hand over one of the fine white siding panels.  In the other she had a thick pack of DVDs - they’d start with the original trilogy, then watch with a version of the Machete Order, but include Episode I, because you simply couldn’t leave out the cinematic genius that was Liam Neeson.

“Sam’s uncle knows a guy who works in rent management in the building next door.  He’s been a lot of help.”

Steve, of course, looked as maddeningly handsome as always.  He wore a tight blue shirt that brought out both his eyes and his pecs, and the moment Darcy had walked in, he’d taken her coat  _ and _ her purse and had a glass of water ready for her.  Now he was microwaving popcorn in the kitchen, letting her make herself at home in the living room.  Though it was over a hundred degrees and stiflingly humid outside, the AC at their place ran cold, so Darcy was snuggling into the thick knit blanket on the sofa.  Though she’d be lying if she said the smooth scent of Steve on the blanket didn’t play a part in how cozy it felt.

“Bucky said he saw you and your mom at the club earlier,” he called out, before emerging with a massive orange bowl of popcorn and a couple of cans of Coke.  “Said your mom invited us to dinner?”

“Yeah, invited you guys to a dinner that I’ll be cooking.”  She grinned and shifted to make room for him, happily accepting the cold Coke as he creaked into the spot beside her.

“Mm, what’s your specialty?” he asked, and the way that his voice took a deep, throaty tone when he settled into the seat cushions almost made Darcy forget that she was only looking for a friend out of him.  It also almost made her forget that she actually had to answer his question.

“I was thinking stuffed shells?  And a quinoa salad, if you guys eat that sorta stuff.”

Steve chuckled.  “Sounds pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

The menu for Episode IV blared into life in the speakers behind the TV, and when Steve pressed the play button, Darcy began to wonder if he was the kind of viewer who talked during movies, like a normal person, or sat silently throughout, like some kind of purist maniac.  Though it would make sense if he  _ were  _ quiet, because he was only seeing these for the first time.

Her anxieties were dissuaded when Princess Leia appeared on the screen, looking surreptitious.  “Oh, I like her already,” Steve rumbled through a grin, pushing himself up to sit criss-cross.

“Leia’s the best.”  Darcy felt herself relaxing into the moment, and let her body mold to the couch.  Steve reached up to pull the thick blanket off the top of the couch and draped it over both of their laps.

“I’m sorry it’s cold - the insulation in here was probably done back in the 1800s and the AC’s lowest setting isn’t really  _ low _ , so it’s either hot as hell or freezing.”

“It’s all good.  I’m really digging this blanket, by the way, where’d you guys get it?”

To her surprise, Steve’s cheeks filled with color, and he looked into his hands, a soft smile on his lips.  For some reason, just this simple gesture roiled the warmth she already felt in the depths of her chest for him.

“My, uh, my ma shipped it off with me when I enlisted.  She...she didn’t know she was sick then, you know?” He brushed a hand back through his hair, and Darcy watched as her hand closed over his knee through the blanket, watched the gentle fondness in his eyes fade into a muted nostalgia.  “She was a nurse, so when she started getting tired all the time, she figured it was just the extra shifts.” He cocked his head to the side, puckering his lips as he directed his eyes back to the screen, but Darcy knew that Star Wars was the last thing on his mind by now.  “Got breast cancer during my first tour. Didn’t make it to my second tour.”

She was silent for a long moment, letting it all sink in.  She let her thumb circle his knee, rolling the soft warmth of the blanket into small bunches between them.  Steve chewed his lip, his eyes still locked on the TV.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so heavy on you...you know, this first time we’re hanging out just the two of us.”

“It’s okay,” she said hastily, shifting her weight so she could face him, get him to look at her again.  “I’m sorry about your mom.” Darcy paused. And again she was reminded unfailingly of when her dad had died, when people people no idea what to say and how most times saying nothing was better than all the shit they tried to put together to make her feel better.  “People say it gets better, or that you get used to it, but you don’t. You can’t.”

“I know,” he chuckled with a cynical shake of the head.  “It’s been  _ years _ , and I feel so...wrong unloading it all on you, but I don’t miss her any less everyday.”

“Don’t.”  She shook her head, and when his eyes finally met hers, Darcy leaned forward just slightly, taking the hand that had been on his knee and pressed it gently to his shoulder.  “Don’t feel wrong.” 

She inhaled deeply, and if the strength of her gaze on him had been just a hint more solid, she could have kept it a moment longer.  But there was a stutter in her chest, a step of hesitation that wanted her to keep shielding her vulnerability. 

“Look, you don’t unlock my tragic backstory for at least another couple hangouts, but…”  She allowed him a second to laugh, and herself a second to reconnect her eyes with his, offering a small smile before plowing on.  “...my dad died a year and a half ago. And even though I get through everyday as normal as I can...doesn’t change how much I wish he was still here.”

Steve nodded.  His hand was large and just the right amount of rough on top of hers, and when he traced a line down her wrist with the pad of his thumb, Darcy thought her heart was going to beat out of her chest.

“I’m sorry about your dad, Darcy,” he said quietly, and for some reason he was now so close that Darcy could smell the sugar of the Coke on his breath, could see the little flecks of green dotting the blue of his irises, could almost taste the soft curve of his lips…

“I am home, I have pizza, and I am ready to never look at a sexually starved skinny white kid ever again!”

Darcy’s back hit the armrest of the couch so fast she had to suppress a groan of pain at the way the wood connected with her spine.  As Sam Wilson made his way through the entry corridor, Steve stood up, as though he’d been caught in the act, and the blanket slipped off his lap.  Darcy didn’t miss the way that he rubbed his hands into the hips of his jeans. When Sam finally entered the living room, he assessed the two of them for a moment, his eyes wide, then cracked a grin that literally almost spread from ear to ear.

“I’m sorry, am I…?  Is this, like, a…?”

“No,” said Darcy and Steve at the same time, and when the word had finally left their mouths, they glanced at each other obviously, like the big dumb dorks they were.

“We’re watching Star Wars, because Steve’s an old man and is severely lacking in his movie education,” Darcy explained quickly, and scooted over on the couch, trying not to look like she was nursing the spot on her back that would definitely bruise later.  “What kinda pizza you got there, champ?”

Sam brandished the large cardboard box with his same proud grin on his face, then, to none of Darcy’s comfort, made a big show of planting himself in the recliner to the side of the coffee table, rather than on the sofa with the two of them.  Steve slowly returned to his own spot beside Darcy, and she had to fight the urge to punch the air when he pulled the blanket back into his lap.

“Half combo, half pepperoni.  I’ll let you have a slice if you guys let me hang out here a while.  Unless you...wanted to be alone.” Sam raised his eyebrows with the most knowing look Darcy had ever seen in her life.  She didn’t have to wait for Steve to summon a response, with the way her stomach decided to roar to life and scream for sustenance.  “Understood. I’ll get plates.”

“No, no,” Darcy cut in, standing up a little too fast.  “You brought the pizza, I’m the one freeloading. Which, uh, cabinet are they in?  If you don’t mind me rifling through your cabinets on top of the, you know, freeloading.”

“I’ll help you.”  It was like Sam’s presence had introduced an impromptu game of musical chairs, the way that she and Steve were leaping to their feet.  He was behind her in the kitchen, reaching over her to open one of the cupboards over the sink, and Darcy could feel the heat of his chest just inches from her shoulder blades.  “Sorry,” he whispered, but Darcy shook her head, stacking three plates in her hand.

“Hey, it’s his place as much as it is yours.  And I like getting to know you...all of you.” She shrugged, letting Steve grab paper towels from the counter beside her.

“I like getting to know you, too.”

“I like getting to know you, too, Darcy,” Sam chimed in from the couch, having already cracked open the pizza box and let the delicious smell of cheese and tomato sauce and pepperoni waft throughout the apartment.  “Hey, Steve, you wanna grab me a beer while you’re over there?”

“Anything else I can get you, Sam?”

“That should do it.”

Even though she could practically feel Steve rolling his eyes as he came up behind her, the pizza and Sam’s company seemed to make up for it.  Steve fell into the seat beside Darcy again, and they tucked into their pizza, which, for Sam’s part, was as damn cheesy and delicious as it smelled.

“So y’all only just got started on the first one?” Sam asked through a mouthful of crust, and nodded noncommittally at the TV.

“It’s pretty good so far.”  Steve had already shoveled in the first piece of pizza, and Darcy was trying not to gape as he plucked a second from the box.  He must’ve noticed, because when he looked over at her, he was smiling a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I, uh...I’ve got a pretty crazy metabolism.  If I don’t get a high enough caloric intake, I get fatigued pretty easy.”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just impressed.”

They spent the better part of the next few hours eating most of the pizza (Steve had insisted that they leave at least two pieces for Bucky, to which Sam sighed and rolled his eyes better than most teenage girls Darcy knew), idly watching the movie, and talking over things at the club.  Darcy let it out of the bag that Odin & Sons was opening a brewhouse in town. She also let it out of the bag that she was tired of pretending to know what kinds of beers coincided with what kinds of foods, likewise with wines, and Sam snorted when she admitted that she didn’t really even know the difference between most beers themselves.

“I mean, I know I’m supposed to be versed on all this, after all the time I’ve spent around, like, my bartenders and things, but I know there are cheap beers, and light beers, and dark beers, and that’s about it.”

“Well, congratulations, your beer wisdom has exceeded ninety-nine percent of college students,” Steve chuckled, then leaned away from him when she reached over in a feeble attempt to swat him.

“You know what, Lifeguard?”  She let the threat hang idle in the air, until Sam broke in with the idea to end all ideas.

“This feels like the beginning of a Mario Kart-off, if you ask me…”

“Yeah, but nobody  _ asked  _ you, Sam - ”

“Don’t think you can back out now, Steve the Lifeguard,” Darcy interrupted, raising a wagging finger to keep him listening.  “If you try to get out of playing Mario Kart with me, that makes me - and Sam, as my witness, of course - think you’re scared of playing with me.  And if you abstain because you’re afraid,  _ that  _ makes you a coward.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed, but his mouth twisted into a wicked grin.  Darcy had never seen someone move as fast as he had when he reached forward to turn off the DVD player and turn on the Wii.

The first round was bullshit, really.  He’d chosen Rainbow Road right off the bat, and with Sam heckling each of them with every turn off the track (which, during the first round, was a lot for Darcy, since she hadn’t played Mario Kart in years), things were a little stressful.  Hence Steve coming to gloat prematurely, wiggling his hips into the sofa in a little dance of sorts, and also hence Darcy poking at his sides, gaining little satisfaction from the way that he flinched at the tickle from her fingers.

“Best two out of three,” she demanded, now that she was used to the controllers and used to the game-playing mindset.  “And I pick the track this time.” Under normal circumstances, she probably wouldn’t have selected the Tick Tock Clock track as a first choice, but Darcy needed the advantages she could get, and after beating Jason at this track about a hundred times back when they communicated mainly via Nintendo DS, she was pretty certain she knew the ins and outs of Tick Tock Clock better than anyone.

Over the next four hours, Darcy learned that, yes, Steve was just as competitive as she was when it came to Mario Kart, and that even Sam, as much as he enjoyed egging each of them on during their Best Eleven Out of Twenty-One, Best Fifteen Out of Twenty-Four, and so on, tournament, had his limits.

“Y’all are crazy.  If you need me, I’ll be the good-looking guy in my room watching  _ It’s Always Sunny _ .”

“Yeah, uh-huh,” said Steve mindlessly, launching a green shell (thankfully unsuccessfully) at Darcy, who was currently in second to the Wario computer.

“Nice try, fucker,” Darcy laughed, her tongue stuck out with concentration as she steered Luigi up a ramp and toward a speed boost that would push her past Wario’s dumb cackling ass.

“Son of a  _ bitch _ .”  Steve attempted to follow her up, but a perfectly placed banana peel sent his Yoshi into a tailspin that allowed Peach, Mario, Toad, and Baby Daisy to whiz by him and across the finish line.  He let his controller drop gently onto the coffee table and leaned back into the couch, resting his arms over the top of it with a sigh that may have been a bit more dramatic than was necessary.

“Have you had enough yet, Steve the Lifeguard?”  Darcy grinned, leaning back into the seat beside him, and folded her arms smugly over her chest.  She pretended not to care that, when her back hit the couch and the skin of his forearm, Steve didn’t bother to move.  She pretended that her stomach didn’t erupt with what felt like tiny fireworks when she felt the bone of his thumb brushing the edge of her shirt.

“I think I have, actually.  I concede - for the time being - to the lady of the Kart.”

“Wow.”  Darcy smirked, angling her body so that she could face him, daring herself to shift her feet into his lap.  “Formally conceding, after only sixteen rounds? You’re a bigger weenie than I thought, Rogers.”

“Hey,” he said softly, and let his hands come down to rest on her shins.  “There’s only so much brutality a man can take losing in his own home. You gotta cut me a break, doll.”

_ Fwuck, there he goes again with that ‘doll’ business.  Trying to kill me. _

“If I find out you were going easy on me…”

“Couldn’t go easy if I tried,” he chuckled, brushing his fingertips up and down the length of her legs, with just enough pressure to tease her through her jeans, and just gentlemanly enough that he stopped at her knee and dropped down to her ankle and still somehow managed to make it sexy without really trying.

Darcy, meanwhile, was trying to keep her cool, and trying to look like she wasn’t about to vomit out of both excitement at his touch and disgust with herself - for going against every principle she’d set since her drunken mishaps.

Just as she opened her mouth to explain that she was in no way ready for a relationship or to fuck him up the way she’d fucked up her last boyfriend, Bucky attempted to slink through the door unnoticed, foiled by the brash clanging of the coat rack against the wall and then the floor, and then his own foul mouth.

“Shit-on-a-stick,” he was hissing, fumbling to set the coat rack back on its feet with his gym bag over his arm.

“You alright over there, Buck?” Steve called, looking far too amused.  Darcy pulled her feet off him and got them under her so she could make her way to the entryway to help.

“You good?”  Once the coat rack was righted, she helped him hang up the heavy leather jackets that had slipped off it, and shifted his gym bag higher up his arm for leverage.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky said hurriedly, and muttered his thanks as he tried to brush past her.

But not before Darcy noticed what was on his neck.

“Hey, uh, Bucky...you said you’d be off around four-thirty.”  She imagined her grin looked like the same one commonly worn by the Cheshire Cat, and based on the way that Bucky’s face stiffened with either surprise or fear, she was probably right.  “Where ya been?”

“Out,” he grunted, then bustled into the living room, where Steve was standing with his arms crossed and wearing a grin to rival Darcy’s.

“We saved you some pizza.  Why don’t you come hang out for a bit?”

Bucky ducked his head down in a feeble attempt to hide the big glaring mark on his neck, but he couldn’t resist the call of pizza, much the way that Steve and Darcy couldn’t earlier.  He fell into the spot between Steve’s and Darcy’s, and let his gym bag slump to the floor at his feet while he dug into the box with ravenous hands.

“So, uh, what’d you get up to, pal?”  Steve chuckled in a way that suggested to Darcy he already knew the answer.

“Hung out.”

“Got into a fight with a vacuum cleaner, huh?” Darcy sang, then plopped into place on Bucky’s left, leaning her feet against the legs of the coffee table.  “Was it a pretty one, at least?”

“Pretty damn pretty.”

Darcy and Steve looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and Steve took his place on the opposite side.

“Who you gettin’ hickeys from, Buck?”

“Yeah, Bucky, who’re you gettin’ hickeys from?”

“Funny you ask, she’s a beautiful woman named  _ Nunya _ .”

“Come  _ on _ , Bucky, you’ve told me every story about every dame since you hit puberty.  What’s her name?”

Bucky sighed a sigh to rival Steve’s from earlier.

“It’s not…”  He paused, looking at each of them, as if he imagined that if he were only silent a few seconds longer, they might stop asking.  When their eyes widened, each of them hanging on every word, he frowned and blew out an irritated huff. “...it’s not...just a dame.”

A beat passed.

“Okay,” said Steve slowly.

“There’s two of them.”

“Two girls?” Darcy exclaimed, tinges of excitement and jealousy rattling around inside her.  “Damn, Bucky, I wish I - ”

“No.”  He swallowed the last bite and wiped his flesh hand on the nearest paper towel, then used it to scrub the fingers of his prosthetic.  “A couple. Guy and a girl.”

“Oh.”  To his credit, Steve looked pleasantly surprised, if a little concerned.  “Well...if you don’t mind me sayin’, pal, make sure you’re careful with that.  Sounds like playing with fire.”

“More like playing with ice…”

“Okay, now, that might be a little too much detail,” Darcy laughed, then pushed herself up to fold her legs underneath her, snuggling into Steve’s blanket.  “But you’ve left out the most important part. Who’re you hooking up with?”

Bucky glanced from one of them to the other, his mouth pinched at the side, like he was almost afraid of answering.  He finally rested his gaze on Darcy, and cocked his head to the side.

“You ain’t gonna be mad, are ya, doll?”

Darcy frowned.  “No?”

He took in a deep breath, then sighed it out again heavily, running his hand through his thick brown shag.

“Jane and Loki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave me some love, if you like :)


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